Setting up the New Council
by steamfan
Summary: The Hellmouth Crew not only has to set up a New Council of Watchers, they also must repay a little debt.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Setting up the New Council

Warnings: Here we have my usual mangled timeliness, characters thrown in from different universes, unusual pairings and finally Jack/Dawn. :)

Summery: The Hellmouth Crew not only has to set up a New Council, they also have a little debt to repay.

Rating: Teen

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Angel the Series

Supernatural

Stargate SG1

Law and Order: SVU

The Boondock Saints

James Bond

Ghost Rider

A/N: Welcome back to the Dawn Winchester Universe! Here is the settling down in Cleveland story.

Chapter One

Dean and Faith looked around the torn up and mostly abandoned bar. "This is where the hellmouth is? This is almost as bad as having it under a school." The main room was filled with dust, broken barstools, and a few knocked over chairs. The mirror behind the bar nothing more than a shattered mess although the bar itself was still intact. "Are you sure its here?" he asked again.

Faith snorted at her boyfriend, "What you don't trust my Slayer senses?"

"I was just expecting something more, you know? If this is where the hellmouth is there should at least be a nest of vampires here. Where are all the big bads?" Dean spun around. "It shouldn't be this easy to get close to it."

"Well, it's right about," she moved around and then suddenly jumped over the bar and went over to a small door that was set into the wall that made up the bottom of the u-shape of the bar, wall and mirrored wall, "here." She opened it and found a closet. "Well, it's in the closet."

Dean sighed and leaned on the bar. "Well, there are so many things I could say about that one that I can't pick just one," he admitted.

Faith threw back her head and laughed. It was barely a month since Sunnydale had fallen into a giant sinkhole. The spring quarter had already started for the University of California and Harvard, which meant that three of the members of their family were on opposite coasts of the country right now. Sam was going to medical school in LA along with his new girlfriend Aphra, and helping out Angel Investigations on the side. Tara and Willow had already moved to Boston, where Tara was attending Harvard and Willow was attending MIT. Dawn brought the girls back to Cleveland every Friday afternoon through one of her portals. Sam had too much work to do to take advantage of his little sister's ability except for special occasions. Giles and Joyce were in England, working on taking care of transferring what was left of the Watcher's Council to Cleveland.

The rest of them were in here Cleveland, doing their best to turn the Jekfoontar Clan mansion into a school for Slayers, Watchers and other demon hunters. And one of the first things on their list to do, once they had caught their breath, set up who was going where, etc. was to find out exactly where the new hellmouth was. Buffy had turned that over to Faith and Dean. "You are better at sensing evil than I ever was Faith." That recommendation, while completely true, had meant a great deal to Faith. It had knocked out the last little tiny bit of envy Faith had for Buffy.

"You know, this place looks like it might be for sale," she said as she wandered around picking up bottles and examining them. "I think that the reason it went under is because it only served humans."

"What are you thinking Faith?" Dean asked.

"Why don't we buy it? I mean, that way we have access to the damn thing and we'll always have a Slayer or two on hand any time someone tries to open it. And if we make it a demon bar, it'll be a neutral place where we can get information. My great uncle ran a bar in Boston. Before my first Watcher came and got me I waited tables sometimes." Faith shrugged, "I think we can make a go of it here. What do you think?"

Dean leaned back against the wall and seriously thought about it. While he had enjoyed working with his dad and brother at the garage in Sunnydale, Sam was in LA at school and his dad had his hands full helping Xander to figure out how to rebuild the mansion into a school. He had no idea how to help with that and he had been sort of feeling like a fifth wheel. Running a bar was something that he could do and even better would be guarding the hellmouth while he did it.

"We have Slayers that are over twenty one now and this could be a short summer job for them. That would make a good cover story for them to tell their boss, family, friends, whoever. And Willow did clear up my police file so I'm legally alive again. Buffy and Dad gave me a portion of the cache so I could afford it. We'd probably have to switch patrol routes with Buffy though."

"We'd need a manager to run the office, do inventory, payroll, that sort of thing." Faith walked out of the run down building with her arm around Dean, discussing the possibility of them buying the bar and running it together.

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In Boston, Willow and Tara weren't having a good day. First they had over slept, then they had barely made it to their classes, then they were both given major papers to do and to top it off when they finally dragged themselves out of the library to walk home that night they were grabbed by a couple of 'procurers' for the local pimps! If it hadn't been for the magic lessons that Elizabeth had been teaching them to control their magic when their tempers were high the two dumb idjets would have been two smears on the sidewalk. As it was, the witches had decided to let the idiots take them to where ever it was they were going to be turned over to the pimps. They were in no real danger and this way, perhaps they could make sure that the local criminals knew not to mess with them unless it was business of the apocalyptic type.

They never got the chance. Just after the pimps arrived three men burst into the room and shot the procurers and the pimps. While they did have experience with more lethal guns thanks to their association with the Winchesters, they had never been so close to the receiving end of the guns before. Demons didn't usually shot their victims. Then to their amazement, all three men started praying over the bodies, placing pennies on their eyes. "Shepherds we shall be, For thee, my Lord, for thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, So feet my swiftly carry out Thy commands. We will flow a river forth to Thee, And teeming with souls shall it ever be. In Nomeni Patri Et Fili Spiritus Sancti."

As the witches stared at them in shock, the older man, easily older than John Winchester from the looks of him, came and squatted down in front of them. "Don't ya worry none lassies. These scumbags won't hurtcha none any more," he said in a heavy Irish brogue.

"Da," the taller of the two younger ones called, "We need ta get the lassies home and call Sam. He'll need ta know their alright."

"Conner, Da!" called the shorter one. "These fuckers got two more over here!" Willow could hear the outrage in his voice. She hadn't seen him go into the other room. "They canna be more'n twelve!"

"Are they alright Murph?" the men both called as they turned towards the bedroom.

Willow didn't wait to hear the answer. They had work to do. "Excuse me," she said and as the two men turned towards them she used a little magic to untie herself and Tara. She knew that it would have been better to ask the men to untie them but they didn't have time. They had to get to the little girls before the men did. "I know that you probably wouldn't hurt them, but they don't know that so we need to get in there." She jumped up and brushed by the men who were staring at the ropes in shock.

"Conner, didn't Sammy say that the lasses needed our sorta help?" The Duke asked his son.

"Aye Da, that he did. Said that they couldna fight again our sort a evil," Conner said, his hand brushing through his sandy blond hair.

"Then what was that?" he asked as he waved his gun at the ropes.

"I guess that means that they can fight his sort," Conner shrugged. They looked over as a small hand pushed Murphy out of the bedroom and into the living room of the small apartment.

Murphy looked over at his twin and father and shrugged. "They're helping the wee lasses." He looked at the corpses, wishing now that he had left one alive so that he could kill them again. "We need ta get them outa here 'for the cops show up."

"Aye," came the agreement from both men. "As soon as the wee lasses can travel, unless Sammy's friends say otherwise," The Duke decided. It wasn't wise to piss off the friends of a Winchester, not even for them.

"They can travel now as long as you have a car," came a quiet voice. Tara and Willow were standing in the bedroom doorway, both of them holding a girl wrapped in a blanket. "We can take them where they'll be safe." And they would because tomorrow was Friday and that meant that they could take them to Cleveland. No one would be able to hurt them with a bunch of Slayers watching over them.

"Follow me then," Murphy said eager to get out of there. He didn't like hanging around after a hit unless it was in a better place than this. Conner grabbed one of the two briefcases and The Duke grabbed the other. No one would look twice at them in this neighborhood. Everyone knew the Saints and wished them well for the most part. They only killed criminals.

Back at Willow and Tara's apartment they put the unconscious girls on their bed and then went to face their rescuers. The three men were standing in the middle of the living room, looking around but not touching anything. It was like they were doing their best to be respectful. "I'm Willow and this is Tara. I guess we should say thank you for the rescue. How did you know we needed it or did you?" Willow asked. She wasn't sure she liked this puzzle.

"Sammy Winchester called us, lass. He said you were in our sorta trouble and needed help," The Duke said quietly. "But now I'm not so sure he was right. Those lads didna work for the usual scumbags we have on the streets here in Boston. I didna recognize either of the buyers."

"Well, they weren't our sort either, nothing magical or demonic about them at all," Willow admitted. "I was sure they were procurers and pimps though."

"Oh the ones that grabbed ya, those were procurers as ya say," Murphy admitted freely. "But them buyers, they weren't pimps. We know all of the local boys. Na, these two weren't from around here."

"Think we should call?" Conner asked.

"He's a good man, fer all he's going ta hell for his sins," The Duke said. "He won't like it that they had the wee lasses. Give him a call while I call Sammy." The two men reached for cell phones and left Willow and Tara with Murphy who was jiggling in place.

Tara recognized the movements before Willow did. "If you'd like, you can smoke out on the balcony," she said softly and pointed to the balcony door.

"Thanks lass," Murphy said sheepishly.

"Wonder what's going on now?" Willow said quietly as she leaned into Tara. Tara simply shrugged as she leaned her head on Willow's shoulder. It had been a long day.


	2. Chapter 2

Agent Paul Smecker was at his desk when his cell phone rang. It wasn't the phone that everyone knew the number for; no this was the one that couldn't be traced to him in any way. Someone else paid for the minutes, it was under a phony name and address and most of all no one had ever seen what it looked like because he always answered it in the can. Most of the people he worked with thought that the mysterious phone connected him to his lover, whoever he was and that said lover was deep, deep in the closet. They were all wrong. The phone connected him to three crazy Irish lunatics that he was supposed to be looking for but instead supported as best as he could because he believed in what they were doing.

The Saints believed they had been called by God to kill evil men who escaped justice through the system. Not by running or something like that, but those who made a mockery of the system by getting out on a ridiculous bail or who sat through trial after trial and walked or those who even though everyone knew that they were behind crime after crime, the cops just couldn't get enough solid evidence on to arrest. Those were the ones that made good cops blood boil and Smecker was a good cop. So every once in a while he might point them toward someone they would be interested in or some where they really shouldn't be for a while. In return they gave him information from the streets that he couldn't get anywhere else.

So it was with both trepidation and excitement that he hustled to the men's bathroom and locked himself in a stall. "Yeah," he said as he answered the phone.

"Smecker, got something that might be up yer alley. There's a one bedroom apartment in the building across from McGinty's, fourth floor. You'll find four dead men. They had two college girls and two twelve year olds, all tied up as packages." Conner wasn't worried about anyone finding out that they were the ones who had killed those men. They had prayed for the souls of the dead and the police would know. That wouldn't stop them from doing their duty to God.

"Right," Smecker said as he wrote down the information. "Did you get the girls out or did you leave them?"

"We got them out; the ladies were friends of a friend."

"Are they lesbians?" Smecker asked.

"Are you fuckin' nuts man? I canna go and ask them that! They're ladies!" Conner practically screeched into the phone.

"If they are, it ties into a case I'm working on," Smecker said calmly. He had held the phone away from his ear after he had asked the question because he had known how Conner would react. It wasn't the gay part that had Conner upset; it was the fact that a gentleman didn't ask such things about a lady's love life. "Someone has been snatching ten to fourteen year old girls and older women all across the country. The older women are always lesbians and the ones who aren't technically virgins are the ones who are killed. The ones who are technically virgins haven't been found, no trace at all. So ask," he pushed.

"Well, I ain't askin about the second part," Conner said and lowered the phone. "Umm, ladies I bin talkin' to a friend in the FBI, he needs ta know if you're, well ah, ummm, more interested in lasses then ya are in lads, if ya are this might be parta one a his cases." The apologetic look on his face was enough to send both Willow and Tara into a state of giggles. Taking pity on the poor man Willow kissed Tara rather passionately so as not to embarrass him any more. Conner turned his back to them and said yes into the phone. It wouldn't do to have anyone see how much he had enjoyed the show.

"Alright, catch you boys later," he lilted.

"Not if we see ya first," Conner laughed. The Saints taskforce was a joke between them and at the same time it wasn't. If Smecker was ever in a position where he had to bring them in he would and they knew that. It actually helped because it made them more careful for his sake.

"Too bad," Murphy said as Willow finished the kiss. "The two of ya are very pretty ladies and I wouldna mind buying ya a pint." He had finished his cigarette out on the balcony and had come in just in time to see the kiss.

"Young Sammy says he's glad you're alright and that we're to make sure all four of ya get to Cleveland as soon as possible," The Duke said as he closed his cell phone.

"Well, that won't be until tomorrow," Willow said. "In the meantime would you like to stay for dinner?"

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"Hey detectives," one of the uniformed officers greeted the two Boston detectives as they arrived at the crime scene. "It looks like the Saints were busy last night."

Greenly shook his head. When the Saints were busy the bodies piled up and other crime went down as the perps did their best to keep their heads off the Saints radar. Sometimes he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Oh he was glad that the perps were dead because they were ones that he couldn't get off the streets, but he hated calling Smecker in. He always felt like such an idiot around the man.

"Who are the Saints?" David Polodecki was new to the Boston Police force, having transferred from the Sunnydale Police department before the town went under last month. He had done so on the advice of one of Buffy Summers friends. When they told you to get out of town, you went, especially if you were at all aware of what when on in that town. He wondered if this was connected to that sort of nightlife.

The looks that the uniforms were giving the new guy shouted how stupid they thought that question was. "Give the guy a break, he just moved here from California," Greenly chided them. Then he turned to David, he never could get the guy's last name right. "The Saints of South Boston are vigilantes from Ireland. No one knows what the father's name is; everyone just calls him The Duke, or Il Duce, as the Italian Mob calls him. The other two are his sons, we think. We had one witness say that at least one of the younger two called The Duke, Da. They go after perps that get through the cracks in the system or that we haven't been able to get off the streets yet. They only go after men, no women or children. Their signature is pennies on the eyes of the dead and if they have time, the arms are crossed. They always say a prayer as they kill. It isn't like anything you've ever heard. They think they're on a mission from God." Greenly wasn't about to tell the new guy that he had helped the Saints take out the Mafia Boss Papa Joe just before he walked out of the court room and made a joke of them all.

Polodecki shrugged, it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever heard. "Maybe they are. I've seen weirder callings." 'Like a sixteen year old girl being called as the Slayer to fight vampires every night,' he thought to himself. He walked into the one bedroom apartment to find four men dead on the floor, two on the left and two on the right. All four had shoulder holsters but they hadn't had time to draw the guns he saw as he squatted down and checked the bodies. The shots had been very professional, one shot per man and only one had his weapon partially drawn. That meant that either he was the last one to die or that the gun had been jostled clear when the Saints had moved the bodies to cross the arms. "Do they ever leave prints on the pennies?" he called.

"Nope, but bag them anyway," Greenly said from where he was calling Smecker.

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"Well, I don't think we want to turn this into a school, or at least not an official high school," John was saying. "I've been going over the records that Joyce sent me and it looks like we've got about 1,000 new Slayers world wide. The bad news is that most of them are over eighteen."

"That makes sense," Wesley said as he passed the milk on to Dean. The Cleveland crew was sitting in the dining room having breakfast. "The Harbringers wouldn't have bothered killing anyone over Calling age. They were concentrating on those who were young enough that they were likely to be called in the future. That is the age group that they devastated."

"Yeah, there are hardly any between the ages of fifteen and eighteen and Willow hasn't bothered looking for new Potentials yet," Buffy said. "She said she knows that they're out there. She can feel them, but it is like they're still sleeping and at least one new one was born in the last month. But she hasn't gone looking to figure out who any of them are yet."

"Yeah, we've got too much on our plate right now to worry about them," Jack said, "How about a college? A small private one would make sense. I mean there are a lot of small colleges that no one ever hears about."

"And we can say that the girls are being accepted into college early when the next Potentials are called," Dawn said.

Heads nodded around the table. That did make sense and it would give them decades to work out a plan for the new Slayers who were being born now. "We'll still need class rooms and a dorm," Xander pointed out.

Buffy looked over the list next to her plate. "We're really going to need language teachers too. There is no way that most of these Slayers are going to be speaking English."

"And most of the Watchers that survived don't speak many modern languages," Wesley sighed. "And how are we going to remove them from their current lives without attracting too much attention?"

"College scholarships," Dean said. "Going to school in the States is a very big deal. Aren't most of these ladies involved in professions that require higher learning?"

Jack snorted, "I know Carter and Benson have to take on going college classes for their jobs. Of course, most of the time Carter's teaching those classes but," he shrugged.

"Ok, we've got the kitchen set up cafeteria style, the ballroom/throne room converted to a workout gym, and the library set up. That leaves dorm rooms of some type, classrooms, bathrooms, offices," Xander was going over his own list. "I think most of this we can use the rooms we've got as is and we can take the reconstruction one wing and level at a time."

"Ok, Xander, you and John run that past Giles and see if we can get set up for a small summer class. I'm sure that we can get whatever permits and paperwork taken care of by then. Faith; did you and Dean find the hellmouth?" Buffy asked.

"Yep, it's in an abandoned bar down town." Faith pushed over a street map that she'd marked earlier. "Dean and I are thinking about buying it and giving a few Slayers jobs as waitresses and the like."

"I don't see anything wrong with that as long as you can keep Dean from making too many puns about the place," John said. He knew that if he didn't make that point clear Dean would be all over naming it Dante's Inferno or something and he didn't even want to imagine the drink list.

"Dad, the hellmouth is in the bar's cleaning closet," Dean pointed out. "I can't ignore that one."

"It's in the closet?" Buffy asked, wide eyed. "Is it shy?" John groaned, they were never going to stop now.


	3. Chapter 3

Every Friday morning before school started Dawn opened a Portal to Boston so that Willow and Tara could come to Cleveland. She did it in the main entrance hall of the mansion, mostly because she liked the dark wood ambience (the only place in the mansion where it didn't creep her out) and because if something went wrong it was the easiest place to defend. Growing up in Sunnydale with her family had taught her caution when it came to inviting people into her home, even when it was someone she knew. There were always disturbing possibilities that could turn an innocent visit into a battleground and it seemed that it often did happen in her family. That was what she got for being the only child of a Slayer and a Demon Hunter.

Dawn looked around the entrance hall to make certain that everything was ready. From the dark hardwood floors to the dark wood paneling on the walls leading up to the second story balcony there was nothing for an intruder to use as a weapon. The wood wall and railing along the second story balconies that stretched along both sides of the entrance hall was substantial and provided excellent cover for any defenders. That was where Dean, Wesley, Buffy and John stood, two on each side, each of them holding a shotgun. Dawn knew that next to each member of her family rested an assortment of other weapons. The upper portion of the railing also included decorative spindles that could also be used as make shift stakes if necessary. They would be prepared in case someone used the portal as an opportunity to attack.

The back wall of the entrance hall had a door that led to a courtyard garden area. That would be her escape route if anything went wrong. The courtyard was surrounded by a covered walkway that stretched the length of the front, both sides and back. The four story mansion's Mediterranean design would ensure that any intruders, if they got by the reception committee, would become the main targets in a shooting gallery as the walkway extended to all four stories of the mansion. She looked behind her to make sure that her escape route was open and then at the watch on her wrist. 'Five, four, three, two, and one,' she silently counted and then as she reached one, she opened a portal to Willow and Tara's apartment.

They had all expected Willow and Tara to step through the portal. What they didn't expect to see was the two of them ushering two preteen girls ahead of them or that they would be followed by three heavily armed men. Dawn slammed the Portal shut. Unexpected guests usually meant trouble and she was prepared to run. Fortunately for those men, John and Dean knew them. "Duke, what brings you here?" John asked. He had his shotgun casually pointing at the older man.

The Duke looked up, seeing a young blond standing directly behind John Winchester. She was dressed in clothes similar to ones he'd last seen on a daughter of a very highly placed mob boss he'd recently killed, although that young woman hadn't seen him. Only this blond wasn't an airhead talking on a cell phone about the latest fashions while writing in her journal. This blond was holding a larger caliber shotgun than John was. The fact that John had her at his back told The Duke that she was very good with that shotgun. John was too paranoid for her to be otherwise; the horrors that he hunted didn't allow for mistakes. The look in her eyes was all he needed to see, this girl had seen horrors and wasn't afraid to kill. John would never turn his back on a murderer, so she must be an ally in his line of work.

"Your youngest sent me and my boys to help out a couple of friends of his," The Duke gestured at Willow and Tara. "They got caught up in our sorta fight and well, you know us John," he said with a smile. "We couldn't turn down the chance to help out a lady, much less two."

"Aye," Murphy spoke up. "Then we found out those fuckers had the little ones." He nodded at the girls with Willow and Tara.

"Sam said that we needed ta get the lasses here," his twin said. But Conner wasn't looking at John. He was looking at Dean and the strange man behind him.

"We'll take care of them," Wesley said shortly. He had noticed how Dean had relaxed when Duke had finished his little speech. "Tara, why don't you take them out to the courtyard and through the first door on the left? There a couple of beds in there." The room was used as a sort of guest room for people to crash in; or if things went badly on patrol, for them to be patched up in.

Tara nodded and whisked her two charges away. Nearly everyone started as they heard a horn sound outside the front door. Buffy reached down beside her and grabbed, not one of the weapons, but a backpack. Then she gracefully jumped up over the railing and down to the floor beside Dawn. She handed Dawn the backpack, "Don't forget, mummies are bad," she said.

"Mummies and Egypt type ancient curses and yes, I know the list. Now I have to get going or we'll be late for the field trip," Dawn said. She grabbed a hug and then scurried out the door behind the Saints. "Don't have a cow Jack! We just had a couple of new girls come in!" she could be heard calling.

"What's wrong with mummies?" Murphy wanted to know.

"Come on and I'll tell you all about my sophomore year field trip," Willow said with a grin. "Hey Buffy is Xander around? I'm sure he'd LOVE to help us tell the story." Giggling semi-evilly, the two young women led the Saints out into the courtyard.

John, Dean and Wesley met them at the largest table among the garden beds. Inspite of the rainy weather outside the mansion, the courtyard was full of sunlight, flowers, bushes and other plants in various stages of growth from sprout to bloom to ready to harvest. There wasn't a single plant in the entire area that wasn't used for something. But while most of the plants Elizabeth and the other witches found useful, either in magic or cooking, there were more than a few that needed to be removed.

This hadn't been a demon stronghold for nothing. There was a clear water fountain that provided the entire building with fresh water, free of any contamination at the center of the courtyard. Flower boxes full of herbs and other things lined every balcony all the way to the fourth floor, an extra protection for any defenders. There were enough garden beds that Elizabeth was certain they would be able to grow any vegetable or fruit that they needed; once they got rid of the demonic plants that were growing there that is. And there were benches and tables throughout the courtyard for them to use. All of this was protected by a magical skylight that blocked out any inclement weather.

"So the lad messed around with a mummy in the museum and ended up a mummy himself?" Murphy said, shuddering. He could see that happening to himself or his twin. There were lots of times that he and his brother had caused a bit of mischief in school. "Are you sure the lass is going to be alright?"

"We're sure," Buffy said. "She has plenty of experienced backup in the case something hellmouthy happens. It's nice not having to worry that this school is going to try and kill our daughter." She snuggled into John's embrace not catching the shocked looks on the Saints' faces.

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'Being a cop was a tough job; being a SVU cop was even harder but being a Watcher on top of that took the cake. Some times there weren't enough hours in the day to take care of his own life and watch his partner's back. How did Giles and Wesley do it? Sure their charges were younger, but they still had full time jobs on top of their jobs as Watchers too.' Elliot Stabler guessed it was their lack of family that made it possible.

'But that's not right either,' he thought to himself as he looked up from the basic demonology text he was reading on his lunch break. He glanced across the bullpen to where Olivia was laughing at John. He and his partner were going at it again and Olivia was about on the floor from laughing at them. It was good to see her laughing again. 'Giles and Wesley did have families. It was simply that their families knew about what went on in the dark.' He glanced around at the small room, filled with desks and not much else.

It was a slow week at the SVU, something that the entire unit needed. They had just caught a group of pedophiles and there hadn't been another hot case in three days. There were still open and on going cases of course, but for right now they could take a breather. Some people wouldn't consider doing paperwork and looking over gruesome case files to be a breather but they did. It was also times like this that they could work on the ties of their own little family. Decision made, he pulled out his cell phone. If he was going to do something this radical, he needed Giles' permission.

"It's true, I swear it is!" John couldn't hold back his smile even as he declared his innocence. He knew how it sounded, but more importantly it had Benson laughing. She hadn't laughed since that trip she and Stabler had made last winter to California. The one that they wouldn't talk about. He knew that something had seriously changed during that little trip. The signs were all there for someone who knew them, but the thing was, Benson was too old to be Called. Everything he had ever read about the Vampire Slayer ever since that night a fifteen year old girl had saved him from the demon whose claw still resided on a chain around his neck, said that the Slayer was Called when she was in her teens. Olivia Benson was most definitely not a teenager, nor had she been a Slayer until recently.

'And another thing,' he thought as he glanced across the room at her partner. 'Elliot Stabler would never been reading demonology texts if he didn't know what was out there and saw it face to face. The man had to have physical proof before he would ever believe such a thing existed.' John remembered with silent glee walking past the man as he plodded his way through a basic text on Vampires, one that John KNEW was the real deal and not a Hollywood fake. He let his smirk crawl across his face as he continued bantering with his own partner. Elliot Stabler was a good cop, but he wasn't very good at hiding things. He had no idea that John had seen the book, much less knew what it meant. The only question was; should John tell them that he knew?


	4. Chapter 4

Jack Jackson, the almost one year old clone of Colonel Jack O'Neill of the Stargate Command, hated school buses. Actually he hated riding on all kinds of buses, but school buses were the worst. That was why he had insisted on an age of sixteen when Sam Carter had set up his new id. As a sixteen year old he was able to have a valid driver's license and own his own vehicle. But he still ended up on a school bus every once in a while due to state sponsored torture - the school field trip. And there was no way that he could call in sick or something, living as he did at the Watcher's Council Cleveland Headquarters. Too many people would know that he wasn't sick who could kick his butt and not break a sweat doing it. Today's exercise in boredom was the Cleveland Museum of World History. He slid into his seat next to Carlos and pleaded, "Kill me now!"

Carlos laughed while Dawn made a rude noise from her seat in front of him. "It won't be that bad Jack. Just think of it as a recon into a potential apocalyptic hot spot. You never know what sort of dangerous stuff could be there."

Jack wanted to glare at her and tell her that she was wrong, but he couldn't. Not only did his own experience with 'old stuff' tell him that there was always the potential for danger, (well senior Jack's that is, he still wasn't allowed to go back to Cheyenne Mountain yet) he had heard the lecture that Buffy and the others had given S2 and 'The Minis' last night. More than once something nasty had shown up at the Sunnydale museum. Amber, Sarah, and Jody were collectively known as 'The Minis' as they were the only known Slayers currently under the age of eighteen. With their Watchers they had formed their own patrol group.

So instead of being grumpy like he wanted to, Jack changed tactics. As S2 and The Minis had taken over the bench seat at the back of the bus as well as the two seats directly in front of it, this would be a good time to talk. Everyone else was still getting loaded on the bus and no one would be paying attention to them for now. "How many classes are you going to get credit for this trip in?" he asked Faith and Dawn.

Faith smirked. Thanks to Wesley's habit of double and even triple grading her school 'projects' she was nearly done with high school. "Wes wants me to find everything that might be dangerous, make a sketch, write a paragraph of notes on each item and then write a report on all of them. The sketches will cover my art class work, the notes will be enough for a couple of World History papers and the full reports will be graded as my Creative Writing class assignments. I could get done with all three classes just from this one trip."

"And knowing you, the reports will only take you a week too," Jack shook his head. "Sometimes I really hate you Faith." He leaned his head on her shoulder and pouted.

"All's fair and you know it," Faith pointed out. She wasn't the only one who had an advantage on the academic side of things. Jack was a straight A student despite the fact that he often slept through some of his classes, relying on the memory download that Loki had transferred from Jack O'Neill to him to get him through school. Of course Jack was taking naps in school because he had often been up half the night on patrol or doing research. So he had an excuse, he just couldn't use it.

Jack sat up straight and turned into the soldier that he had been. "Ok, Faith's good but I don't want anything missed," he said turning their goofing off into a mission briefing with just a few words. All seven of the high schoolers straightened up and focused on what he was about to say. "Dawn's right about turning this into a recon. I want a complete list of everything on display. Kit, Carlos that will be your jobs. Dawn, I want you to check for anything magical. I'll cover the obvious security, building layout and I'll also double check for anything that falls under SG1's jurisdiction."

"What about us?" Amber asked, eager for an assignment. Jody and Sarah leaned in. They were just as eager as she was.

"You three help Faith, Kit and Carlos. Remember everyone; you need to fill out your packets the teachers handed out. We don't want to break cover," Jack said sternly. While school itself was an important job for them to complete, it was times like this that it was used as a cover for more important things. Just as Jack finished handing out assignments the bus started up. They had talked through both the bus being loaded and the teacher's speech.

Jack shrugged to himself. It had most likely been the same old stuff, behave and stay out of trouble. He had heard that one so many times and in so many different ways that he could probably write a dissertation on it if he wanted to. Besides, he and his kids had an important job to do; they weren't interested in causing trouble.

When the bus pulled up in front of the museum, Jack and the others were ready for their recon armed with spiral notebooks, pens, sketch pads and the knowledge that the job they were doing could meant the difference between life and death someday. They were survivors of a harsh enough world to know exactly what that meant. That was probably why Jack got so snide with the woman from the museum that had come to conduct the tour.

Miss Soto fit the stereotype of the spinster schoolmarm to a tee. She was short with grey hair, wore a black blazer and skirt with a starched white shirt and a set of horned rim glasses hung around her neck. She also treated the group of teenagers like preschoolers, and naughty ones at that. And in her opinion, they weren't much better. 'Children should be kept to museums built for them until they are adults,' she thought as she looked over the group standing in front of her. The sheer amount of squalor and disrespectful behavior she had already seen since they entered the entrance hall of the museum had nearly made her faint. She didn't want to see any of them near her precious artifacts but the girl who normally took the tours through was out sick today. "Do we all know how to act in the museum children?" she finally asked at the end of her speech.

"Yeah, don't ride the exhibits," came from the blond boy at the back of the group. The sheer horror of his suggestion froze her on the spot to the point that she couldn't make out his sarcastic tone.

"All right," one of the teachers jumped in. "Let's get into our groups people." He took Miss Soto by the arm and led her off to a vantage point where they could watch the teens. "That was Jack Jackson," he said quietly. "He's a master of sarcasm. He's also the leader of a group of about eight students. They are all survivors of the disaster in Sunnydale, California. Most of them were literally on the last bus out of town before it collapsed into a sinkhole. Not everyone made it out and you can tell it has really affected all of them."

Miss Soto could see what he meant. Mr. Jackson had the students he had been sitting with organized and already taking notes about the exhibits in the main entrance hall. Two different girls had sketch books, while the only other boy in the group had three girls with him making some type of detailed notes. The last girl was with Mr. Jackson and they were going over the entire room with yet another sketch book and notebook. She didn't know what they were doing but at least they weren't touching anything.

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Jack was shocked at the number of magical items Dawn was finding. In every gallery there were at least three small items and one large one. "Please tell me this is normal for a museum," Dawn whispered to Jack as she hurriedly sketched a scrying bowl from ancient China.

"No way," Jack said. He was certain of that. "This is a large museum, but the odds of getting this many magical objects into just one exhibit are like a hundred to one. The odds of it happening in every exhibit in this museum are off the charts. No, this has to be a deliberate effort to collect magical stuff and my guess is the exhibits are just camouflage."

That scared Dawn. Not only was Jack one of the few military people in her family's line of work, he was also the one with the highest rank and amount of experience. Jack O'Neill was a full bird Colonel whose file was mostly blacked out. Even Jack Jackson wouldn't talk about most of what O'Neill had seen and done over the years. Her father hadn't made it beyond Sergeant and he had spent most of his time hunting going after things that weren't Human. Xander's military experience was spotty and due to the 'incident' on one Halloween night years ago. When it came to dealing with people, she trusted Jack's instincts. And if what he thought was true, then she didn't want to spend one more moment in this museum. It wasn't that long ago that she had been a magical object and she knew that more than one group was still out looking for her.

Ancient South America, Medieval Europe, Africa during the race of colonization, all of these were set up in the galleries surrounding the main exhibit hall. Faith was in heaven sketching out all of the weapons she could find, even though she had been told Jack's theory. While she believed him and made sure that everyone was kept on their guard, she loved the weapons and was drooling over them as much as the Minis were. Jack, on the other hand, was getting edgier and edgier. The main exhibit hall was given over to Egypt and he was praying that there wasn't anything in the room that he would 'recognize' as being 'in use' so to speak. His prayers weren't answered.

As the group stepped into the exhibit, Jack instantly recognized the setup as one that the Goa'uld used in their throne rooms. He flashed S2 and the Minis the hand signals he had taught them for 'enemy, find name'. That was something that was the same in this business as it had been at the SGC. They needed to find the name of the Goa'uld that was in charge here.

The throne room was filled with treasures from Ancient Egypt. Statues of girls filled the room, some with weapons and some at looms. A shield with two crossed arrows was predominantly placed on the wall. The throne was covered in gold and jewels and there were statues of large women guarding it. That made Jack very, very nervous. If this particular Goa'uld was what he thought then they were in for a lot of trouble.


	5. Chapter 5

Sam Winchester had been suspicious before but now he was certain. His trouble magnet status was hereditary and he had NOT inherited it from his father. Of all the things that Dean had inherited from their mother why couldn't this be one of them? Why of all the things he had inherited from their dad, couldn't the fact that he had to go looking for trouble be one of them? He shook his head as he eased back into the beach chair he had out on the deck of his Grandfather Mark Sloan's beach house. Then he pulled out his cell phone and made a call. 'At least Grandpa only gets involved with human bad guys,' he thought. "Hey Dean," Sam said after his call had gone through. "How's the hellmouth?"

Dean Winchester grinned into the cell phone he had tucked between his ear and his shoulder and glanced over at the closet door. "Quiet right now but I'm sure it'll get over its inferiority complex soon and give us a nice big apocalypse for its debutante ball," he said, referring to the opening of his and Faith's bar. He was in the middle of sweeping out the last of the reconstruction dust from the main room. "How's school going?" This time he was enjoying his little brother's college stint. Unlike the first time his family was still talking to each other (at least as much as Winchesters were likely to) Sam had Angel, Gunn, Doyle and some new girl called Fred of all things to guard his back and most importantly to Dean, Sam was living his dream of going to medical school. Sometimes he still couldn't believe that one. Sam wanted to be a doctor so that he could heal the battle wounds that he and their dad collected like trophies. Faith and Buffy had Slayer healing to patch them up and all of them were of the opinion that Dawn shouldn't be Hunting without serious backup for many years yet.

"School's good, I'm on an accelerated program so I'm taking extra classes. And I've already tested out of a few too," Sam said proudly.

"Oh yeah? Which ones?" Dean asked as he got out the supplies he needed to clean the bar itself. The witches couldn't put an anti-violence spell on the bar and building because of the hellmouth but they could put up alarm and alert spells. Those spells would tell those running the bar if anyone entered the building and what their intent would be. In order to put the spells in place, Dean had to clean everything within the boundaries of the spell.

"General Anatomy, Advanced Latin," Sam paused, "Advanced EMT."

Dean stopped wiping down the counters under the bar. "Are you telling me that you certified as a Paramedic?"

"Yeah, you remember how Dad was always taking EMT classes whenever we stayed in one place long enough?"

"Yeah," Dean said.

"Well, he'd bring home the books and I'd read them, especially after you started getting hurt right along with Dad," Sam admitted. "It also helps that I have a lot of practical experience."

"You do at that," Dean deadpanned. With him and their dad in the front lines, it had often fallen to Sam to patch them up once he had reached a certain age. Why hadn't he seen that? With hindsight he could see how eager Sam had been to take care of them.

"It shocked Grandpa Mark and Uncle Steve. They weren't nearly so ready to mother hen me after that and the incident." Sam winced; he hadn't meant to let that slip. He mentally counted down until Dean found his voice.

"What happened!" Dean demanded.

Sam knew that Dean couldn't let the slightest hint of a threat to him go. "Don't get your shorts in a twist Dean. Grandpa does some consulting with Uncle Steve's department, that's all. This idiot tried to kidnap me while I was studying. You should have seen the look on the faces of the cops who came in with Grandpa and Uncle Steve when they came running into the house. I was sitting on the couch studying and had the kidnapper all gift wrapped for them next to me."

Dean laughed, he could see that happening. For all the grief he gave his little brother over not being a better fighter, Sam was no slouch. And knowing his little brother's research habits, he would bet that the poor sap had been listening to Sam for hours lecturing on whatever it was Sam had been studying too. He wondered if the guy had begged the cops to put him in jail to escape Sam's no doubt gruesome lecture.

"Hey do you think that you can come out this weekend?" Dean asked, changing the subject. "It's Jack's Creation Day and we're throwing him a party."

"Cool, what do you think he'd like?" Sam asked. He liked the young clone who had found a place with his family and an understanding and sympathetic friend in his baby sister. That two such people existed was amazing enough, but the fact that they were so close in physical age, had become part of the same organization and were friends was wonderful for both of them.

"You know Jack, anything to do with weapons, hockey or fishing and no snakes of any kind unless they're on a target." They both laughed for a moment. Jack was a rather simple person to get gifts for. "OH, and make sure you start thinking up threats for him too. He's been eyeing Dawn. It's time to get our big brother badges."

"Oh he has, has he?" Sam asked. He had seen that one coming from a mile away but he didn't think that Jack would make a move until their dad decided that Dawn was old enough to date.

"Yeah, Dawn's been working on Dad to let her date. She keeps reminding him that technically she millions if not trillions of years old."

"Like that's going to work," Sam said. "Ok, have Dawn open a Portal for me at the Hyperion at six on Friday. See you soon big brother."

"See you soon Sammy." Dean ended the call and put his phone back into his jeans. "Hey guys, no smoking in here!" he called out as Connor and Murphy walked in.

"Who ever heard of a bar where you couldn't smoke?" Murphy mumbled as he and Connor walked towards the bar, fumbling in their pockets for their lighters in complete unison as usual.

"It's not the bar," Dean said as he snatched their cigarettes out of their mouths before they could be lit. "It's the alarm spell the witches are doing tonight. After it's done you can smoke all you want but not before."

The twins shrugged. The only thing they knew about witches and magic was what the bible said on the subject. It was John who had told them that just like with other people witches could be either good or evil. "So why is yer dad gettin' all snuggly with the little blond?" Connor asked. He'd been wanting to ask all day, ever since he had seen the two sit together. Snuggly was the best way he could describe the two. Sappy was another but he valued his life.

"We took out the demon who killed my mom," Dead said with satisfaction. "Dad's been a widower more than twenty years. Sam and I don't have any problems with Dad dating Buffy."

"But she's younger than Sammy!" Murphy protested.

"She's a Slayer," Dean said calmly. "And that's one of the things that make her a perfect match for my dad."

Connor was about to ask what a Slayer was when Faith ran into the bar and threw her arms around Dean. "Hey Hero!" she said and kissed him deeply. As much as she wanted to drag out the kiss, Faith knew that wouldn't be a good idea; not with Connor and Murphy McManus watching. The twins were practically her family and two of only three that she was willing to claim. The last thing she wanted was to give them the impression that she'd turned into her mother. "Connor, Murphy, what are you two doing here?" she asked when she'd let Dean go. She pulled them both into a group hug, being careful not to break their ribs.

"Good Lord Above Faith!" Murphy cried, "Where have you been? We've been looking all over for ya!"

"You know we're going ta have ta kill ya now, right?" Connor asked Dean over Faith's shoulder. "Ya laid hands on our goddaughter."

That pulled Faith out of the hug and she slugged Connor on the shoulder, still holding back her strength. "He's a perfect gentleman until I don't want him to be. Now what do you mean goddaughter?"

Connor rubbed his shoulder, not realizing that Faith had pulled her punch. "Doc made us yer godfathers when he was diagnosed. He knew he wouldn't be able ta take care a ya as ye grew up. Then he got sent ta hospital an' ye up and disappeared."

"Aye, gave us a bad turn ye did," Murphy said. "Do ya have any idea how many prayers we been sayin' fer ya? That ya'd be safe and come home soon?"

Dean interrupted; he had a pretty good idea of what had happened. "Was that when your Watcher came for you Faith?"

Faith nodded. "Uncle Doc owned the bar I practically grew up in. Someone came in and beat the crap out of him. He died on the way to the hospital. That's when my Watcher showed up. I wouldn't have gone with her if I'd known about the godfather deal. It was ok though. She may have been an old bat but I really liked her."

"Who told ya that load of lies?" Connor stormed. He turned Faith's head so that she was looking directly in his eyes. "Doc dinna die. He's a stubborn old coot bastard and half o' what he says these days is swearing or mixed up sayings but he's still waiting fer ya ta come on home."

"Aye!" Murphy chimed in. Moving as one they both pressed a kiss on either side of her forehead. That little ritual had started the night she had met the twins. They had been straight off the boat from Ireland and McGinty's had been the first Irish bar they had found when they arrived in Boston. They had been enchanted with a little eight year old Faith in lopsided pigtails. Used to the family pubs back in Ireland they hadn't even blinked when she had given them the beers they had ordered. Doc had noticed. He had noticed even more when a few nights later the twins had descended like the wrath of God on a pervert who had come a little too close to his great niece. He had adopted them into his small family and the twins had taken to spending most of their nights at the bar. Then came the day that Doc was attacked and Faith had disappeared.

"Is the number still the same?" Faith asked as she pulled out her cell. The twins nodded. "Remind me to ask Jack about what the First did to Travers, Dean. He refused to tell me the first time but now I really want to know."

Dean nodded. He understood what she meant. Quentin Travers had been one cold bastard. There was no doubt in either of them that he was the one who had ordered the attack on Faith's Great Uncle Doc so that she would have no one to turn to other than her Watcher. He turned to the twins so that Faith could have some privacy. "Quentin Travers was the head of the Watcher's Council. Last summer he got demoted and ended up as a sacrifice for a demon entity called the First. Before the First took out most of the Watchers and while Travers was in charge they treated the Slayer like she was their personal butt wipe or something. Travers was probably the one behind the attack on Doc. They wanted to make sure that Faith didn't have anyone to turn to because she had been Called as the Slayer."

"What's a Slayer?" both the twins wanted to know.

"Freaky twin thing," Faith called as she always did when they spoke in unison.

"She's a mystical warrior called by the Powers that Be to fight the things that go bump in the night, most specifically Vampires. That's why she's called the Vampire Slayer. Up until a few years ago there was only one Slayer at a time but Buffy drowned and was revived by CPR. She was dead long enough for the next Slayer to be Called. Then that girl died and Faith was Called. A few months ago, Willow changed that by making sure that every Potential Slayer was called when she turned fifteen. The old Council got torched about the same time. Right now we're in the middle of setting up the new one, getting all of the new Slayers identified and making sure that they have the support they need." Dean waved his hand around the bar. "That's one of the reasons Faith and I bought this place. The Cleveland Hellmouth is right in there," he pointed at the closet.

"Let me get this straight," Connor said as Murphy stared at Dean in shock. "Faith's been Called by God to fight Vampires and other nasties like the kind that you and your family fight. And the doorway to hell is in your closet?"

"Just one doorway," Dean grinned. "There are five others around the world."

While Connor and Murphy could accept being called by God to fight evil just as they had been, they were having trouble with the hellmouth in the closet. "What's it doing in the closet?" they asked.

Dean smirked and nodded at Faith, "It's hiding from the big bad Slayer."


	6. Chapter 6

Colonel Jack O'Neill watched his second in command dance around the campfire. Ok, so she was practicing her martial arts, not dancing but her moves were so graceful she might as well have been. This they had found was one of the side effects of Carter being Called as a Vampire Slayer. She had a lot more energy these days, especially at night. She didn't need more than four or five hours of sleep and while O'Neill knew that she would have loved to spend the extra hours in her lab working on her ever growing collection of alien doohickeys, that wasn't possible.

Her Slayer urges demanded action and movement. If a good fight wasn't possible, then she needed to patrol or practice at least. Carter, genius that she was, had solved her little problem rather handily. She had arranged her lab so that there was a large space in the middle. There she had put exercise mats and other equipment she used for practice. Then she had set up extra large computer screens on the walls, all hooked up to a voice command computer. Once she had added in a headset that part of her life had gone back to being almost normal.

Off world, it was another story. Carter couldn't sleep. She made due with catnaps during the day and patrolled their campsites at night. Daniel had assured them Carter could keep up the pace for two weeks before needing a full eight hours of sleep. Considering her new habits had saved them from snakes three times in the last two months, Jack was willing to go along with it.

"Sir, do you think we can get leave for Jonathan's Creation Day?" Carter asked. She was still facing away from the fire, throwing punches and kicks.

For a second O'Neill considered that it wasn't fair that he couldn't get in on a little of the Slayer enhancements before shoving that thought away. He had enough trouble with snakes. He didn't need to deal with Vampires as well. "That's why Hammond gave us this assignment. No natives, no ruins and hopefully no trouble mean that we should make it back to Earth in time to celebrate Mini Me's first birthday."

"What are you getting him?" she asked.

"A life sized Loki target complete with a collection of things to throw at it," O'Neill smirked. He hated the rogue Asgaurd scientist almost as much as his clone did. "What about you?"

"I designed a game for his playstation. Daniel and Teal'c helped me with tactics and accuracy." She could practically feel him perk up. She was glad she had her back to him so he couldn't see her expression.

"What kind of game is it?" O'Neill asked. He didn't bother to hide his interest. Carter had known him too long.

"It's an adventure platform with stuff we've run into out here and some things that Daniel and I have been studying. It's quite a mix if I do say so myself."

"Carter," O'Neill started.

"Jonathan gets to play it first sir. When we get back to the mountain after the party I'll set up the SGC's copy."

O'Neill knew that his clone wouldn't mind the SGC having a copy of the game. Knowing Carter the game could probably be put to good use as a training tool, it would be that accurate. "Thanks Carter."

"Your welcome sir," she said. Then she turned back towards the fire. "It's time for Daniel's shift sir. Why don't you go get some sleep?"

"I'll wake him, you keep alert. I don't want to have to tell Mini Me we missed his party because we got careless."

John Winchester hated paper work. He always had. But now he was in charge of setting up things in Cleveland and that meant he was neck deep in paper work. John had tapped Jack as his second in command. It wasn't because he didn't think that Xander or Dean couldn't do the job. It was because Jack had years of experience helping to run a military base. If anyone could figure out how to get things organized here it was Jack. Jack was in charge of making sure that their cover, such as it was, stayed intact. It was a task that included many minor details John had never considered before. John was intensely grateful for Jack's experience. One of the first things he had done was to hire John a secretary.

Angelina Moneypenny was a godsend. John didn't know where Jack had found her and quite frankly he didn't care. The older lady was completely unflappable. Nothing fazed her; not Dean's gentle flirting, Portals opening in front of her, the demonic influences in the mansion, the few on staff demons, not even the antics of the younger Hunters and Slayers caused her to so much as blink. The first time Dean, Jack, Xander and Spike had gotten going John had been certain he was going to lose her. Instead she had said that they made a refreshing change from the double oh set and had continued about her duties. That alone made her worth her weight in gold to John.

She was also able to some how have exactly what he needed on his desk exactly when he needed it. Today that was a file of the paper work needed to establish the Mary Winchester Memorial College. He hadn't been the one to name the school. The name had simply appeared on the first of the paper work. To him Mary had always represented all of the victims of this war and he had been touched by someone's gesture. Now all he had to do was get through this blasted paper work.

"Mr. Harris to see you sir," Moneypenny said and let Xander into the office. Xander came in with yet another file and strangely, a handful of color sample sheets. When the first words out of his mouth were 'it's not my fault', John knew he should have stayed in bed that morning. He grabbed his coffee and took a drink before wiggling his fingers at Xander.

"Ok, first of all the inspections and estimates are done." Xander laid the file on John's desk. Like most of the furnishings in the place it was left over from the demon clan that had built the mansion. About the only thing that it had in common with a human desk was size and shape. It was made of a black substance that looked like dried blood and the vertical surfaces were carved with torture scenes. That was why it was wrapped from the flat surface down to the floor with a Care Bear flat sheet. John didn't know where the sheet came from but he wasn't sure that substituting one form of torture for another was the best way to go. Unfortunately other things were higher on the list of priorities to be replaced, like the beds and the poisonous plants in the gardens.

"It's going to cost us a bundle but we can have basic school services up and running in two months. The second thing is that the ladies have revolted." John raised his eyebrow and Xander shrugged. "They are demanding that I drop everything and paint their bedrooms, the dinning room and the library, plus replace all of the furniture. If I don't they've threatened to do it themselves and use this color scheme." Xander laid the samples out. The color scheme was something right out of a Disney princess movie.

John flinched. He just knew that Buffy was behind the threat. Dawn had been having bad dreams lately. While John figured that they were due to the events of the last year, which had been a wild one even by his standards, Buffy thought it had more to do with the creepiness of the mansion. "Ok," he sighed. "Get the construction crew out to start on the renovations. Then take whoever it is that brought this to you and get paint. As long as the public areas are green and blue they can paint their own rooms in whatever color they want. I'm not about to argue with a woman about how her private space should be decorated." While only some of the women living in the mansion could break him in half without breaking a sweat, the rest had far more creative options for punishing him should he be stupid enough to make that mistake.

"Give Buffy a list of what furniture needs to be replaced and remind her that what ever she buys needs to be sturdy." With a school full of Slayers and Watchers in training that was a given. John shoved the paint samples away. They looked even worse if possible against the blood black of the desk. "And make sure that this office furniture is on that list please? I'm not sure how much longer I can take this desk." He looked at it and shuddered once more. 'Thank god that Dawn is too old for cartoons like that,' he thought again.

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Sam was surprised when Fred showed up at the hospital with a box. The petite former physicist with long brown hair and a Texan drawl had been there before as County General was the hospital the AI crew used for their frequent injuries. But she wasn't injured this time. She had found him in his grandfather's office doing yet more homework. With the slightly shy (and slightly off) smile that she seemed to offer to Hunters she placed the box on the desk.

Warily Sam opened the box only to find a tiny puppy inside. There was something off about the puppy but it wasn't until it looked up and cowered into a corner that Sam realized what it was. "Fred, why did you bring me a Hellhound puppy and why isn't it trying to bite by head off?" he asked calmly. It was always best to try and stay calm around Fred. She frightened easily but working with Angel and his crew was helping with that.

"It's not a full blood Hellhound," she said helpfully. "Sometimes a Hellhound will breed with other kinds of dogs and well, things don't always work out right with the pups. The rest of the litter was all evil and stuff so we had to kill them. But this little guy has all the physical characteristics of a Hellhound. It just doesn't have the personality. So we couldn't kill it because, well we don't kill things that aren't well, evil." She paused and then pointed to the puppy. "That isn't evil, he's just really scared. You know growing up, well he isn't grown up he's just a baby, but growing up with all of your brothers and sisters being evil and you not being evil kind of made him a scaredy cat. I thought that maybe your family would like him, since we couldn't just send him to the pound. I mean that would be a really bad idea cause even though he isn't all evil and wanting to kill people, he's still part or maybe almost all Hellhound," she said earnestly.

Sam wondered if it was because she was smart or if it was her experiences but she was almost as bad as Willow sometimes. Then he grinned. He knew just what to do with the puppy. "You know Fred, this is perfect. Jack's birthday is coming up and I was wondering what to get him."


	7. Chapter 7

Vivian had spent her entire childhood preparing to protect the public from monsters. But by the time she turned eighteen the call hadn't come and the Watcher's Council had thrown her out into the streets like so much trash. She had been lucky. Her Watcher had a housekeeper who was addicted to television and as much as he had tried to keep her away from the 'distraction from her duty' he couldn't manage it. Thanks to the housekeeper, she'd had a better idea of the daylight world than most failed Potentials.

She had gotten a job, worked hard and received her GED. Then she went on to college. Her only plan at the time had been to show the Watchers and the PTB's that she could have made a good Slayer. In time she grew grateful that she hadn't been called. Being in law enforcement was satisfying in ways that being a Slayer couldn't have been. She had met her husband, had a son and now worked to find missing people and return them to their families.

Then came the day that she fell asleep at her desk and had a dream. She knew what the dream was, bits and pieces of the lives of two Slayers, both the good and the bad. What she hadn't known was why until a third dream girl had offered her a choice; the choice to become a Slayer or to remain as she was. She had said yes. She didn't know why she had been given the choice now, but she could no more turn her back on it than she could fly. If she was needed to be a Slayer, then a Slayer was what she would be.

She hadn't trained to hunt vampires without a Watcher but she had been trained to track down killers by the FBI. She knew where they were likely to hunt in New York. So she had told her family what had happened and then gave them a demonstration. Her son had been thrilled. Her husband had been terrified. In the end things had worked out. They both understood why she had accepted the call and did their best to support her. She spent about four hours every night hunting and the vampires were just active enough to keep things interesting.

Mostly the vampires were fledglings or minions. At least they were until about two and a half months after she'd been Called. Five young women in five nights had gone missing from the area next to where she usually patrolled. She recognized the signs, even if Jack and the others from her unit didn't. There was a vampire nest nearby; probably a big one and she had missed it forming until now. Well, that's what she got for not working with a Watcher.

Of course, she already knew that most of the Watchers were dead. She knew what the main Council building in England had looked like, that had been a part of her studies. When it had exploded it had made CNN and she had been watching. She had felt curiously detached from the news that the people who had raised her were dead. It wasn't like she was in shock or anything. She just couldn't seem to care about them. It was far easier to care about the people she was supposed to protect.

Going after a nest by herself was stupid but she didn't have a choice. The only people who knew she was the Slayer were her husband and son and there was no way in hell she was going to take them with her. So Vivian tracked the nest by herself. What she didn't expect was to run into another woman who moved like she did.

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Olivia Benson knew that there was another Slayer in New York. She had found that out when several vampires she had been trying to track down were staked before she could get there. All she had found were piles of dust. She had called the information in to Cleveland but no one knew who she could be. While some information had survived the destruction of the Council, not much was known about the Potentials who had not been called past their eighteenth birthday. As Xander had put it, the old farts hadn't wanted to know what happened to them after they couldn't be Called any longer. So there could very well be a former Council raised Potential or someone like her, a Potential who had slipped through the old Council's net that had accepted the Call and lived here in New York. Whoever she was, the Slayer had been doing a really good job in keeping things under control in this part of the city.

But there was only so much one Slayer could do by herself in a city this size. And whoever she was she didn't have backup. That wasn't acceptable. She was Liv's sister Slayer and there was no reason she shouldn't have help when Liv could give it to her, if she could find her that is. So when one of Liv's demon snitches told her about a nest that was right outside of the area that the unknown Slayer was patrolling, Liv and Elliot set out to see if she would show up and give her a hand.

Liv was expecting to see a young woman, perhaps somewhere between her age and Buffy's who had been living on the streets or something similar. She knew that the old Council didn't give a damn about the girls who would grow up to be Slayers and they had cared even less about those who hadn't been Called. She couldn't see them helping the girls who hadn't made the cut survive in any way. So she wasn't expecting to see a black woman about her age dressed in a conservative business suit. Whoever the Slayer was, she wasn't down on her luck, except perhaps in the backup department.

"Hey," she called. The woman looked at her and froze with a confused look on her face. Liv held up a cross and the woman relaxed slightly. She approached, not getting to close so as not to startle her new sister. "Do you know where the nest is? My snitch told me it was on this block."

There was something about the woman that made Vivian want to trust her. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't tense at all or the fact that she was standing between Vivian and whoever it was she had with her back in the alley behind her. From her body language, the woman was trying to be open and honest. "It's in there," Vivian pointed, "and why do you want to know?"

"Because you're hunting vampires and that means that you've figured out at least part of what happened two and a half months ago," Liv said.

Two and a half months ago was when she'd been Called. If this woman knew anything about that, Vivian wanted to know. "I know something terrible must have happened. But I haven't a clue as to why the rules were changed so drastically."

"Last Halloween a demonic entity called the First started opening the Hellmouth in Sunnydale, California. Two and a half months ago the Hellmouth was closed. In order to do that, seven living Slayers were needed to bleed on a mystical seal. In order to get seven Slayers a powerful witch changed the rules and now every Potential over the age of fifteen is a Slayer, at least those that accepted the choice," Liv said.

"Sorry ladies, but could we speed this up?" Elliot asked, stepping out of the shadows in the alley. He knew that both Slayers had known where he was. "I hate waiting around while being this close to a vampire nest." He glanced nervously around as he fidgeted with his crossbow.

"It won't be as bad as it was in Sunnydale Elliot," Liv said. She turned back to Vivian. "My name is Olivia Benson. I was one of the seven Slayers in Sunnydale. This is Elliot Stabler, he's my partner and he's learning to be my Watcher. We're NYPD, Special Victims Unit."

"Vivian Johnson, FBI Missing Persons Unit," Vivian introduced herself. "I was raised by the Council until I turned eighteen. I've been on my own since then. Shall we?" she asked, gesturing towards the small abandoned house that hid the nest.

"Lets," Liv answered. "Elliot, stay out here and cover us."

"Watch each other's backs and don't get killed," Elliot said. "I don't want to have to explain that to anyone." He went back up the alley to a fire escape and made his way to the top landing. From there he could see most of the entrances and exits to the house. 'Now if I only had one of those staff weapons that Jack had in Sunnydale,' he thought longingly. 'That had made a great sniper weapon. Too bad it was almost as long as the kid was tall.' Elliot shrugged off the thoughts, knowing that the military would never give him access to the weapon. "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," he whispered to himself. 'At least I know how to use this crossbow.'

On the way up the steps to the house Liv offered Vivian a squirt gun. At her blank look, Liv laughed. "It's filled with holy water."

"Thank you, all I've got are a few crosses, stakes and a large hunting knife." A holy water squirt gun was a weapon that Vivian hadn't considered before, although it made a lot of sense. Liv broke the door lock and they started to clear the house. As they both were law enforcement, they used the tactics they had been taught to by their respective agencies, rather than what they had learned from the Watchers. Liv reminded herself to tell Giles the next time she called in that it might be a good idea to hire a retired police academy instructor to teach these tactics to the new Slayers.

The upper floors were empty, with the exception of a lot of dusty furniture. Taking no chances, they checked every closet and cupboard, making sure that nothing living or undead was being shielded from their Slayer senses. Finally there was only the basement to clear. The sense of vampire was strong enough to give them both pause but they had known going in that the nest was a large one. "You go first, you've got more training than I have," Liv whispered. Vivian nodded and took the lead down the basement steps. The basement was a single large room filled with fourteen vampires and their victims. It reminded Liv far too much of Sunnydale.

The good news was that none of these vampires were Turok-Han. The bad news was that this was a true nest. One master vampire sat on a recliner at the far end of the room. He had a young woman in his lap and he was feeding on her. Two female vampires sat at his feet. From their body language and the intelligence on their faces, Vivian knew that they weren't just minions. They were Childer. Childer were vampires who had the potential to become masters themselves. The rest were minions, the vampire equivalent to cannon fodder.

Vivian knew that they didn't have much time before the vampires got over their shock, so she just jumped right into the middle of them. Liv followed and they both dusted two minions before the vampires could defend themselves. That left seven to obey the master's cry of "Kill them!"

Neither Slayer was expecting any other reaction and laid into the vampires. Liv soon last her stake when a minion in the process of dusting pulled it out of her hand. Vivian held another one off of her with the holy water squirt gun until she could get the short sword out of the sheath that ran along her spine. Then Liv started decapitating every vampire within her reach.

The master vampire was shocked to see these two women take on his minions and easily destroy them. They were too old to be Slayers but that was exactly how they moved. Making a quick decision he sent his two Childer into the fight before he could lose his last four minions. Then he made his escape through a door to the outside. If he had been wearing his human disguise he might have made it. But Elliot saw the demon face and made his shot. His practice over the last two months paid off. The master vampire dusted just as Liv and Vivian came charging out of the house.


	8. Chapter 8

Jack Jackson, from the moment he'd set foot in the set of rooms he'd been assigned, had been determined that he was not going to wait for someone to get around to replacing the furniture. He'd gone out, replaced his truck and then after having Elizabeth check everything in the rooms for magic, had hauled the entire contents of the suite out to the dump. He'd rather sleep on the floor than in a room filled with the leavings of the Jekfoontar Clan.

He had gone out and bought himself the bare essentials; bed, dresser, clothes and school supplies as there wasn't a lot of money left after buying his truck. While the Air Force had set him up quite well as an emancipated minor, he was on a monthly budget and couldn't splurge very often. The only reason he'd had the money for the truck in the first place was because his insurance company had paid for a replacement. It hadn't been his fault his first truck was on the bottom of Sunnydale Crater Lake as it was now known.

For such a small set of rooms, there had been an astonishingly large amount of furniture, most of it small. Having been a father at one time in his previous life, he'd recognized a nursery when he'd seen one. The irony of sticking him in the nursery wasn't lost on him. In just a few hours he would be celebrating his seventeenth birthday. Although it wasn't the end of the first year of his existence, he'd had too many years of memories of this being his birthday to change it now. Besides, he wasn't about to celebrate the day he'd become a clone of himself.

He sat behind the makeshift desk he'd put together from a piece of countertop and two filing cabinets, hard at work trying to get his work done before his party. Not only did he have his schoolwork to do, he also had a list of prospective employees to go through and a report of what S2 and the Mini's had found at the museum for Daniel to look at the next time SG1 was on-world. It was just his luck that when he needed Daniel's expertise the man wasn't on the planet! He wasn't even sure that they'd found the right name for the Goa'uld.

The employee list wasn't any easier. Ohio had strict requirements for both teachers and schools, elementary through college. He had to give John a list of those who met both the state of Ohio's requirements and theirs. They had about twenty researchers left over from the old Council and thirty Watchers had tottered out of retirement (or had been sent to some remote location as an exile by the old farts) to do what they could to help. Of those fifty, most were still in England helping (or hindering as the case might be) Giles in finding people to become new Watchers or going around the world locating the new Slayers. Those who were in Cleveland were running around trying to do the work of several hundred each. Anyone who could pass the tests and was trustworthy had to be hired immediately.

Which is why the first two women he had hired were Moneypenny; on the recommendation of an English Agent he'd known back in Major O'Neill's covert opps and Missouri Mosley, on the recommendation of Sam Winchester. If there was one thing he'd learned in the service it was that any organization depended upon the efficiency of its secretaries. Missouri was a psychic and more than willing to give up her business and come be their receptionist and Jack's secretary. She said it was a far better job than telling lies to people who didn't want to know the truth. Jack was simply glad that she was good at the job and willing to use her gifts to help out. The fact that she already know what was out there was a major bonus. Moneypenny lived up to James' recommendation as well. He'd said that she was completely unflappable and he'd been proven right. Now if Jack could just find people to fill the rest of the positions he had.

"Don't you worry none honey. It'll all work out in the end," Missouri patted his shoulder as she laid a pile of papers on his desk. "This is the group that made it through the first cut today. I round filed the rest. The ones that have previous experience with the weird have a moon by their names. The ones that are multi lingual have a star and the ones that have both have a sun. You'd best look at these now. Dawn is already bringing in guests by Portal, so you don't have a lot of time before the party."

"Missouri, I couldn't do this without you," Jack exclaimed.

"Oh you'd do it, it'd just take you a hell of a lot longer," she said with a smirk.

"Yes ma'am!" Jack agreed.

She laughed and left him to his work. She walked down the three flights of stairs to the entrance hall. 'This job sure is going to get me into shape,' she thought. But Jack refused to use the room on the second floor until it could be remodeled. Missouri could see why. With all of the demonic furnishings and decorations still in place that was a place that would give anyone nightmares, even with as much experience with strange things as young Jonathan had.

She had set up her desk, phone and filing cabinets in the entrance hall as soon as the MWH College became official. She'd had the hall lined with chairs so that the people filling out applications had a place to do so. The fact that this also kept them where she could sense their thoughts wasn't unintentional. She was the second layer of the school's unusual security system. The first layer was the wards and spells that covered the building. They kept out, or at least identified anyone with ill intent. She was there to do a more selective screening.

Missouri looked up from her desk as Dawn opened another Portal. This time the guest that came through was Sam Winchester and in his arms, wearing a big blue bow was a hellhound puppy. Before Dawn could hug her big brother, Missouri was on her feet and charging. "SAMUEL WINCHESTER!" she boomed as much as she was capable of. "What do you think you're doing bringing that in here?"

The tiny puppy heard her and cowered in Sam's arms. He barely remembered not to hurt the nice Sam with his pee. He was scared that the loud creature who smelled of interesting things was going to take him away from the nice Sam. Maybe it was going to throw him on the hard floor and kick him. That was what the one his mother had called 'Master' had done. Then the dead one and the nose tickling one and the soft one had come with the sharp things and made 'Master' dead and his mother and brothers and sisters too. But soft one had taken him to the nice Sam. The nice Sam said that he was going to live with Jack Jack.

Had the loud one hurt Jack Jack? Was it going to hurt the nice Sam? The puppy didn't like that thought and screwed up what courage he had. He would growl at the loud one to make it go away. And if it tried to hurt the nice Sam he'd pee on it. That had hurt the rug and made it go away. The eight pound puppy put his thoughts into action and let out a little high pitched growl.

Sam was surprised. The puppy was still shaking like a leaf and his version of a growl was laughable at best but he was actually trying to growl at Missouri. Her reaction surprised him even more. He could have sworn she knew that the puppy was a hellhound.

"Oh aren't you just the sweetest little thing!" she gushed. "Now don't you worry none child. No one is going to hurt Sam and Jack is busy upstairs. As soon as a few more people get here we'll start Jack's party and you can meet him." Then she turned to Sam. "Don't you worry either Sam. Yes, I did recognize this fine young puppy but he can't be all hellhound when all he wants to do is defend you from me."

"I think he's part Rottweiler," Sam said relieved.

"Well his daddy might have been the big, dumb and loyal type but this little fella has an intelligent brain to go with his big heart. But then sex makes all men stupid, even dogs, so he might have gotten some of his brains from his daddy." Missouri was holding her hand so that the puppy could sniff her fingers. "He was so scared and at the same time he was worried that I'd hurt Jack and was about to hurt you. You made a good choice bringing him here Sam. This is the perfect place for him. Everyone is in the gym because Elizabeth didn't want anyone to get food on the books in the library."

Dawn scowled at her big brother. "Dad put you up to this didn't he? Jack's going to be so busy with the dog on top of the rest of his work he's not going to have any time for me!"

"Well that wasn't my original plan but it works for me," Sam said and carried the puppy off to the gym. He grinned to himself as Dawn made a frustrated sound behind him. If they were really lucky, Jack would be swamped with all kinds of work until Dawn turned sixteen. Then he could ask Dawn out on a date. Sam was sure he could find plenty of volunteer chaperones by then.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I'm sorry. I've tried and tried but the party segment just would NOT co-operate. I simply could not get beyond two paragraphs. So, this is what the muse handed me and insisted that THIS is what happens next. Shrug I've learned to go along with her. All arguing does is set back the time that I can post. Please remember that 'Jack' is mini-Jack the clone and O'Neill is Colonel Jack O'Neill the original.

Chapter 9

Jack sat against the headboard of his bed petting the puppy Sam had given him. The puppy was stretched out across Jack's legs, flat on his back adoring the tummy rub. Jack was waiting for Colonel O'Neill to come up to his room for a private talk before taking SG1 home.

His party had been a blast. Everyone who had survived Sunnydale, except Sam's girlfriend Aphra who had to work, had come and most had chosen to get him stuff for his rooms. He had to admit, they had been more than bare. Now he had a real desk and a much nicer chair, courtesy of Giles who had said that if he was going to be doing the work, he might as well have a nice place to do it. Joyce, bless her, had made sure that he was adequately supplied with enough bedding to last him until he retired, well make that until O'Neill retired.

His kids had gone all out and together had bought him a new Playstation, games and an entertainment center. He had the sneaking suspicion that they had built the entertainment center themselves. He didn't think that many entertainment centers would have places to store a variety of weapons. He shook his head remembering Dawn, Kit, Carlos, Faith, Wes, and the Mini's excitement when he'd opened the group present. He now had to wonder if they'd been talking to Carter, seeing as she had designed him a new game to be played on that particular game set-up.

John and Buffy had gotten him a gift certificate for the local hardware store, complete with instructions that he was to use the entire thing on getting his rooms the way he wanted them. As he had been saving up for paint to cover up the hideous purple and blood red walls, the gift had been a welcome one. Now maybe he could replace the torch brackets with real lights instead of the camp lanterns he had been using. Originally the brackets had held magical torches but the light they put out was even worse than the colors on the walls.

Willow and Tara had gotten him bookshelves. There was more than enough room in the library but they said that they knew he needed a place to put his books where no one would just go in and borrow them. Not that Jack had all that many books but the Watchers had, one and all, gotten him gift certificates for the local bookstore. Jack shook his head. He didn't know why but there was no way to deny it. He was doomed to be surrounded by geeks. He ignored the fact that he now tended to stand up in defense for geeks in general and his geeks in particular.

Dean had gotten him a television set that fit suspiciously well inside the entertainment center. Sam had given him the puppy of course, and Jack rubbed his belly once more to the puppy's evident delight. 'At least his care instructions weren't that much different from a regular dog's,' Jack thought. 'I can deal with acidic pee and watching out for flame belches if he eats spicy food.' Xander and Spike, pranksters extraordinaire, had given him a book on practical jokes and gift certificate for a slightly not normal joke shop they'd found one night. He wasn't sure he wanted to go anywhere near there without significant back up. On the other hand, he wanted to know what to be on the look out for because there was no way those two hadn't bought a lot more than just his presents.

Stabler and Benson had even stopped by, although they hadn't been able to stay for long. They had gotten him a stereo system and yet another gift certificate, this time for a music shop. They had also had holed up with Giles for about an hour. Jack wasn't sure he wanted to know what that had been about but he knew that he'd find out tomorrow. They had the look of people who were reporting news that they weren't really sure was good or bad, although they were leaning towards good. The new guys; Roxanne and Johnny Blaze and Carter Slade, had set him up with a motorcycle and Blaze had promised to teach him to ride it. A motorcycle was able to go places where a truck couldn't and that could come in handy someday. Some days he wasn't sure that he liked the fact that he was getting so used to the supernatural that talking with and getting a birthday present from two burning skeletons was all in days work.

But the best presents had come from SG1. Carter had designed a game just for him that had bad guys both demonic and alien in origin and Daniel had found him a telescope that he could set up in the rooftop gardens. At least he could set it up when the area was safe for humans. Right now they had Clem and his family clearing out all sorts of demonic stuff that Jack was afraid to ask about. O'Neill had a Loki target made for him and it was already hanging up on his wall. There was no doubt that he was going to be using it quite a bit, especially over the next few months that he had to wait until Dawn turned sixteen and he could ask her out. He wasn't stupid enough to try before then, not with her family being who and what they were. Dean in particular had already given him a lecture on what he was allowed to do with his baby sister. Teal'c had given him an exceptionally touching gift though. It was a hand written account of the oral history of the Jaffa fighting styles. Teal'c had to have written it himself as the Goa'uld forbid such things to the Jaffa. Teal'c had said that the teacher needed to learn before the students could. It was a way of showing his support to Jack's teaching the martial art to the Slayers and those who helped them.

"Pretty good haul," O'Neill said from the doorway.

"Yeah, more than I expected that's for sure." Jack said and waved the older version of him onto the foot of the bed. "I didn't forget you though." He reached down and pulled out a present from under the bed and handed it to O'Neill.

O'Neill ripped open the present like the little kid they were often accused of being. It was a starscape, one that Dawn had helped him to pick out. It showed the portion of the galaxy that SG1 had explored. Each sun was labeled with the code the SGC had designated for the planet. It had taken months to piece together between his memory and Dawn's plus checking back with Carter for details. "Sweet!" O'Neill exclaimed. It was already framed behind glass so that O'Neill could hang it up right away. Jack knew that would help as O'Neill tended to spend more time off world than on sometimes. It was also removable so that it could be updated.

"So that was Dawn," O'Neill said casually.

"You're forgetting who you're talking to," Jack pointed out. "That won't work with me and I know that you've already met her."

"Yeah but I didn't know you were interested in her," O'Neill pointed out.

"She's like me," Jack said softly. "She's one of the very few, hell probably the only one, who understands what it's like being a created person. A bunch of monks made her from blood samples from John Winchester and Buffy. She's a magical test tube kid. The monks gave her fake memories and aged her up to fourteen."

"Is that why she does the magic stuff?" O'Neill asked.

"They put a magical energy source in her to hide it. Now that the threat that made them do it is gone she's learning to use the magic because it's a part of her." Jack said matter of factly.

O'Neill considered that and then nodded. "Makes sense. Whatcha gonna name the dog? And by the way I can't believe that kid got you a Hellhound!"

"I think I'll name him Harry," Jack said petting the puppy once more. He knew that O'Neill would remember the first dog 'they'd' had as a kid. "It does make sense if you think about it. I mean really, if it is way out there in the supernatural sense, it'll come here sooner or later. And it makes more sense to have me take care of him than the kids. They don't need to be taught responsibility, everyone here is involved in saving the world on a regular basis but it'll be good for them to have a pet around. Amy the rat doesn't count."

"Why not?" O'Neill asked confused. He had seen the rat before riding on Dean's shoulder and although rats weren't his idea of an ideal pet he couldn't say that they were the worst he'd ever heard of.

"Because she used to be a person and right now she's in therapy. The doc's trying to get her to let go of the spell that she's under so that she can be human again." Jack sat back smug.

O'Neill scrunched up his face trying to get around that one. He shook his head and decided not to bother. "Danny's downstairs looking over the files your kids had waiting for him."

"I just hope we found the right name. Shit, that scene was straight out of some of my worst nightmares," Jack said with a shudder. He didn't have to say which nightmares. They shared enough of them that O'Neill knew what he was talking about. "The only thing missing was the snake and her, I'm guessing it's a her, Jaffa."

"Well, let's go see what Danny's got then," O'Neill said. He stood up and carried his present out the door with Jack right behind him. Harry was left sound asleep on Jack's bed. Jack had left the files in the library, so that was where they headed. They had the unfortunate luck to run into the Minis as they were coming in from patrol. Three hopped up teen Slayers surrounded Jack and hoisted him up on their shoulders. O'Neill and their desperately tired Watchers watched as they cheerfully carried 'the birthday boy' down to the library. Daniel looked up as the three young Slayers carried Jack in and ceremoniously sat him down in a chair before dancing their way out of the room singing something off key that O'Neill couldn't figure out. "Caffeine rush?" O'Neill asked their Watchers.

"No it is merely their usual post slaying exuberance," one Watcher said. "They will go down to the cafeteria and 'pig out' I believe is the term on ice cream before heading to bed. I for one just want a shower." The other two Watchers agreed and dragged themselves off to their rooms. As they were covered in some type of orange slime, no one tried to stop them. John and Giles would get their report in the morning.

"So Danny, whatcha got?" Jack and O'Neill asked in unison. That didn't happen as often as it had the first few days after Jack had been created, but it did still happen on occasion.

Daniel had a grim look on his face, "A problem," he said. "The kids got it right. The goddess Nit was the war goddess from the town of Sais who protected Lower Egypt. She was the goddess of soldiers and hunters. Her favored weapons were bows and arrows. She's the patroness of virginity and weaving. She was also the mother of Sobek, so we're probably dealing with a queen."

Instead of the 'Crap!' that came from O'Neill, Jack was grinning and it wasn't nicely. "Well, then she really picked the wrong town to settle in didn't she?"


	10. Chapter 10

Daniel had needed his reference books as the current Council had no references at all on Egypt. Everything that they had once had was destroyed when the Bringers had blown up the main Council building in London. Before taking SG1 back to Cheyenne Mountain to look for information on Nit, Colonel O'Neill took Giles and John aside to explain what they already knew.

"Ok, Nit is most likely a Goa'uld. Because of the stuff written about her that Danny said off the top of his head, I'm pretty sure that Nit is a Queen, a female capable of reproduction. Now that is extremely bad news for the SGC but it is good news for you."

"Why?" they had both wanted to know.

"Because aside from Carter our best fighters are male but yours are female," O'Neill said. "Queens give off this type of pheromone stuff that makes any male who comes into contact with it an almost mindless slave, only females are immune. What I mean by almost mindless is that the men become totally loyal to her and nothing else matters to them. They are still able to use their mental abilities but everything they have is geared to serving the Queen."

Giles looked at him closely, "I'm guessing that you have had a rather up close and personal experience with one of these Queens?"

"One more addition to my ever increasing supply of nightmares," O'Neill quipped but Giles and John could see the truth of his statement in his eyes. They watched as SG1 headed out and then went back inside. There was time enough in the morning to tell the others what little they knew. The rest of the night would have to be spent shopping for the replacement research materials.

Two nights later:

Tony ran one of the best pizza places in the city of Cleveland. That wasn't bragging on his part, it was simply fact. It also meant that he had to put up with jerks coming in and trying to order him around, 'protection' and all that crap. They just wanted the money that he made. The small Italian man glared up at the large Russian who was trying to intimidate him. Hired muscle was all that these three were and he knew it. He wasn't about to be pushed around by hired muscle. He was a man of honor and these three were just scum. Too bad for them that his best customers walked in just as he said, "Tell your boss he can go to hell. I owe him nothing and I will not pay for protection that I do not need!" Turning to the two young men he asked. "What can I get you tonight boys?"

Ivan was pissed at being dismissed so easily. He turned to his two men and waved at the two young men. "Break their legs!" Then he turned back to Tony. "Continue to defy your betters and this is what will happen to you and your customers!"

Tony might have been worried if it wasn't for the fact that he knew just how much trouble Ivan and his men had bought themselves. After those two had 'talked' to his daughter's stalker last month the man had never shown up again. Tony was confident that they could handle themselves against the three Russians, well one Russian now. The first two Russians were out cold on the floor. He leaned against his counter to watch the show.

Ivan didn't like the smirk that was on Tony's face and turned around to order his men to break a few additional bones as well. The words never left his mouth. The two young men; one tall and dark, the other shorter with bleached blond hair, weren't on the floor moaning or screaming in pain like he expected. The blond was perched on the counter that ran the length of the entrance, swinging his legs and smirking at him. The brunet was standing over his two men, arms crossed and glaring. His men were out cold on the floor. Ivan hadn't heard a sound.

"That was so not cool dude! You do not break people's legs just because they want to order a pizza or ten; not even the bleached menace deserves that." The brunet turned to Tony. "It's a research night Tony. We'll need everything and double our usual order if you can. It's apocalypse season."

Tony grinned broadly and whirled around calling to his family and staff. Research nights were the highlight of his week. Xander and Spike always bought twenty five pizzas, three large salads, ten dozen cookies and enough liters of pop to float a navy on research nights. He hadn't believed their order the first time they'd walked through his door but he prided himself on his customer service so he had promptly filled it. The two of them had been back every night since; although only on research nights did they place that particular order. Other nights they bought anything from five to fifteen pizzas.

Xander was pissed. These three jerks thought that they could walk in and make threats to the owner of the only 24 hour pizza place where he could order 25 special order pizzas day or night and get good quality food for researching. When the two would be leg breakers had started for him and Spike, Xander called up his soldier memories and struck as hard and fast as he could.

He was shocked at the results although he did his best not to show it. He was so used to fighting things three or four times faster and stronger then he was that he managed to hit them and knock them out before they could do more than take two steps. It had taken all of Spike's vampire speed and strength to catch the two men before they hit the ground. Not that Spike cared if they were hurt or not, he was just setting up the last bloke. What happened next was a bit of a blur. Just as two men in suits walked in, the last Russian charged Xander.

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Paul Smecker was ready to kill three certain Irishmen. First they had called him to tell him about one of their little additions to their 'river of souls'. Then they had called him halfway across the country to Cleveland of all places and asked him to meet him in a bar. The worst part was that all they had told him was that he needed to be here because they couldn't take care of his 'problem' for him. That was ominous. The men of the McManus family were killers with a very strict code and anyone who was doing what his current case involved should have been right up their alley. That they had said they COULDN'T take care of the one behind the kidnappings and deaths of the women and girls he was looking into did not bode well.

Neither did walking into the pizza parlor that his local contact had said was the best in the city only to find an assault of some kind in progress. A huge man was charging a gorgeous brunet who was in turn standing over two unconscious men. A bleached blond was sitting on a counter behind the brunet swinging his legs and giggling. 'He's giggling because why?' Smecker asked himself.

The question was answered almost as soon as it flashed across Smecker's mind. And the reason was because the brunet had the huge guy on the floor before he could blink. He had simply stepped aside and then done something so fast that Smecker couldn't follow it. Then the big guy had done a face plant. Smecker smiled. This going to Cleveland thing was looking up. He looked over at the brunet. "You got any more moves like that gorgeous?" He had no idea why the blond fell off the counter laughing his head off or why the brunet decided to start pounding his head on the counter. He shrugged and walked over to the only witness of the beginning of the assault. "Paul Smecker, FBI. Can you tell me what's going on here?"

Tony smiled. "It's simple. Those three are trying to get protection money from me. Xander and Spike are my best customers and when I refused to pay Ivan there sent his men over to them with orders to break their legs. Unfortunately for them they chose the wrong targets. Xander and Spike can take care of themselves. Then Xander placed their order and you saw the rest. Can I get anything for you?"

"Yes, one slice of your best sausage pizza, a diet coke and directions to," he pulled out a small notebook, "The Pit of Hell, I'm told it is a new bar. Oh and put whatever Jones there wants on my credit card after he takes care of your little garbage problem." Smecker waved his thumb over his shoulder at where his contact was calling for someone to take the mob guys away.

"No problem," Tony assured him.

While he went to get Smecker's pizza the blond walked over to Smecker. Smecker thought that this one was probably Spike. He had the punk scene look with the hair and the black clothes. "Why do you need to find The Pit?" the young man asked in a Cockney accent.

"I'm meeting some friends there," Smecker answered.

Spike looked over the FBI agent. Government agents weren't at the top of the list of those who frequented The Pit. While it was a mixed crowd, both Human and Demon, most remembered the Initiative as well as he did. On the other hand, if this bloke wasn't a shirt lifter he'd go beg Angel to be his sire. And those types weren't really welcome in groups like the NID. He did say that he was meeting some friends there; maybe he was aware of the demonic side of things. After all, most of the Scoobies were ordinary people who worked jobs and went to school if you only looked at their outsides. "Me and the whelp will take you there as soon as we've delivered the food we were sent after."

"Thanks, I'll help you load up your car," Smecker offered. He started to regret the joking offer he had made when a waitress started setting two liter bottles of pop on the counter and didn't stop. He hadn't thought that the two young men would need any real help. But it looked like they were getting enough food for an entire college rather than just a single fraternity or themselves.

It turned out he was right, although he had no idea how they managed to get the entire load of pizzas, salads, cookies and pop into Xander's little car's trunk. The crowd of teens and adults who made off with the food at the large mansion turned private school they stopped at was a puzzling group. Smecker might have enjoyed staying and figuring them out but he needed to find Murphy and Conner.

After dropping off the food they went downtown. The bar they pulled up to was as seedy, rundown and local as the bar that had brought the McManus brothers to his attention years before. Smecker shook his head as he remembered the dead Russian mobsters with the 'interesting' bandages. That had been one hell of a bar fight he'd been told about. He hoped that they'd manage to get out of here without one tonight.

The inside of the bar wasn't what he had expected. It was pleasantly lit, although he couldn't see the light fixtures themselves. The front room was neat and clean and the waitresses who were serving the drinks were decently dressed. He couldn't see a bouncer. Several people in costumes were sitting at the tables. A short haired man was behind the bar and several men were in front of it. He recognized the McManus family among those sitting at the bar. Conner and Murphy were laughing at the bartender and The Duke was talking with an older man next to him. He walked over and sat down next to Murphy.

As he did so Xander and Spike knew that Smecker had no idea that the demons in the bar were real. No one who had any knowledge of the nightlife would walk by a Tarkal demon as if it were harmless. They headed over to the bar. As the school was also the home of several underage people alcohol wasn't encouraged on the premises. When someone wanted a drink they tended to go down to The Pit. Of course John absolutely refused to name any of the drinks Dean served when he ordered one.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Nit's Palace

Nit stretched the arms of her new host above her head and watched her mirror image critically. Then she turned around so that she could see her new host from the back as well. The three sided mirror that she stood in front of showed a blond woman of just under six feet tall with long blond hair and blue eyes. She was fashion model thin without looking anorexic and had classic Nordic features. 'This one would have been a good model for those damned Asgaurd, or perhaps she could have been one of their priestesses. But she's mine now and all of her body's power with her!' she thought smugly. Nit nodded and stepped down from the changing platform. Her servants took it away and she walked over to where her new First Prime knelt. "This host is acceptable," she declared in the echoing voice that signaled a host possessed by a Goa'uld.

Andrew Croft breathed a silent sigh of relief. Ever since the canopic jar in the basement catalog room had broken during an attempt to get to know one of the museum's lady employees, he had lived both in fear and wonder of the goddess that had been released. He knew that the body of the girl the goddess had first taken over hadn't been acceptable but it was the only one available at the time. He was simply grateful that the goddess hadn't been interested in his, although he would have given it to her if she had wanted it. Nit was the most perfect creature in the universe. He was helplessly in her thrall and ecstatic that to be so.

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The Pit of Hell

Dean looked over as the front door to 'The Pit' opened. He didn't recognize the man who walked in, although he did see that the wards showed that he meant no harm. The two who followed him were Xander and Spike. They were watching the first guy closely, so Dean switched his focus back to him. Even if he wasn't looking for trouble, something was bothering the troublesome duo.

By the time the new guy had crossed the room Dean had his number. He was older than Dean, probably in his mid forties and between the tailored suit and the longer styled hair, he was definitely gay. What was surprising was the guy was also a fed, FBI if Dean was any judge. For some reason the FBI instilled in their people a walk that not even this guy's gay swagger or the fact that he was pissed at something could hide.

But he wasn't pissed off at his regular customers. No, this guy was unhappy with the twins, or maybe the Duke, but most likely Murphy. Dean could tell that from the way that the guy zeroed in on Murphy and by the way that Murphy was just edging closer to Conner. Not that it was easy to tell because Murphy didn't even move half an inch but Dean was far too used to dealing with very minute tells from Sam and his dad not to notice Murphy's twitch closer to his twin. He was also unacquainted with what went bump in the night because he just walked right into the bar like he didn't have a care in the world. Not even the most devil may care Hunter walked by a Tarkal demon like it was nothing. But he couldn't be a slacker either if he knew the McManus family personally and wasn't turning them in. This had to be the Agent Smecker that Murphy had told him about.

Quickly he checked to see that his shields were up and that nothing and no one in the bar was targeting the newbie. Unlike most demon bars 'The Pit' did not rely on anti-violence spells. With the hellmouth in the closet right next to Dean those sorts of spells never worked properly. The spells tended to either misfire or be reversed. The last thing 'The Pit' needed was the clientele being even more fractious than usual. So Dean, Faith and Wesley relied on the Slayers who served drinks and doubled as bouncers. Few demons wanted to go toe to toe with more than one Slayer at a time and even fewer wanted to do it when those Slayers had the sort of back up that these Slayers did.

Dean smirked when Smecker sat down next to Murphy and raised his eyes to the drink list behind his head. He hated telling people the same thing over and over so there was a chalk board with the drink list above the mirror behind the bar. The list was carefully selected both to amuse Dean, Faith and their customers and to go along with the bar's theme, which of course John hated with a passion. He could tell the moment that Smecker got it when he winced as he mouthed the names of the shots.

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Smecker had figured out that this was a theme bar long before the time he had sat down next to Murphy. The guys in costumes were mostly dressed as monsters and demons of one sort or another. He didn't mind theme bars for the most part, sometimes they could be really fun. At least this one wasn't decorated in flames and chains. He just didn't think that a bar with a hell theme would have been the very religious McManus family's first choice. He glanced at their faces and inwardly sighed over the three identical smirks. There was definitely something going on here.

He checked out the drinks list and winced. It was written on a chalk board over the mirror behind the bar and the names of some of the drinks were different from what he had expected. Beelzebub, Blood, Castration, Closed Casket, Exorcist, Four Horsemen, and Hellhound were all drinks he was familiar with. But what was a Hag Rider, Hell Flames, Raise the Dead, Slayer on PMS, or Slayer's Fist? From what he had heard as he crossed the room the last two were popular drinks here. 'But why did the waitresses ask if the customers really wanted one? And why did the customers tend to laugh and say they just wanted the drink?'

He ordered a Four Horsemen as it seemed most appropriate. He could safely say that most criminals would tell him that the McManus family qualified as three of the horsemen at least and by ordering that drink he could also tell just what it was that he was getting. He didn't bother to greet the men he was here to see. He was tucked away between Murphy and the wall, a spot he knew that they had to have saved for him because one of the men would otherwise have the safest seat at the bar for themselves. He flipped his blond and grey hair out of his eyes and twisted slightly on the stool to put his back to the wall so that he could see the entire room.

As he checked out the room the first thing he noticed was that the waitresses didn't pick up the empties from the tables. They just held out their trays for the customers who put the empties on the tray for themselves. Then the bartender took the empties and there was this little pause just after he took each glass. That was strange enough that he began to pay closer attention.

Smecker was a very gifted man. He was intelligent, good looking, and could look at a crime scene and tell almost exactly what had happened and sometimes even why it had happened, as long as the scene wasn't cold. He hated cold crime scenes. But he wasn't psychic. His talent came from a good imagination, an eye for details, and an easily accessed memory that held a great deal of information on a variety of subjects. He was in effect, an artist.

But he had worked with psychics before, both real and faked. It didn't take him long to realize that the bartender was one of the real ones. He didn't know why this guy was using his gift to check out his customers at a dive. Well ok, this was place was really great for a bar in this neighborhood. But the bar tender could have been turning his talent to doing so much more than this. At least that was what Smecker thought until the bartender picked the last glass off of the tray the current waitress was holding for him.

The brunet waitress wore her hair long and unlike most of the other waitresses she was wearing skin tight leather and if that wasn't a knife set she was openly wearing he'd turn in his profiler's certification. This was not a girl who fit the waitress mold. She should be a bouncer or hanging off the arm of the toughest biker around. She was also waiting for something more than just a refill on the customer's drinks. Smecker caught the furious glare that covered the bartender's face for a bare instant before a calm mask slammed down. He could tell that the waitress had caught the look too. The bartender looked at the waitress and Smecker could see some sort of communication going on between the two. She smirked at the bartender as she took the now refilled drinks. Smecker wasn't sure what was going on but he knew that something was.

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Faith knew who the gay guy was as soon as he had walked in the door and had signaled to the rest of the Slayers/Bouncers/Waitresses that they should watch over him. Her godfathers had already given her the run down on their FBI friend and she was grateful that he had watched out for them as they had gone about their own sacred calling. It really wasn't that much different from hers, scum bags were scum bags after all, but at least they didn't have to worry about things that couldn't be taken out with a well placed shot or two (or twenty, she wasn't that naive about her godfathers). She had been the one to go down to the bank for them to renew their penny supply. It seemed that they were running low after killing the sleaze balls that had kidnapped Red, Glenda and the two little witches. She really hoped that this guy could help them out with their little alien snake problem. It was too bad that Duke had ruled that it was too risky for them to have anything to do with the case. Although to be honest he was far more worried about risking the lives of women and girls than he was being taken over by the alien snake's love mist.

She went around delivering drinks to demons and Humans alike while doing her real job, which was to keep an eye out for trouble. She delivered her latest tray of empties to Dean who checked them out as he refilled them. That really had been a good use for his abilities and one that Dean could get behind. They both enjoyed cheating demons out of their fun, especially if it saved lives. It only took a fraction of a second but Faith knew that look on Dean's face. One of the demons that were sitting at her table was planning something and it wasn't good. Faith quirked a question at him with her eyes and Dean flashed her the fight and capture signals out of sight behind the bar. 'Great, just what they need, a bar fight in a bar full of demons to introduce the newbie to what goes bump in the night. Well,' she thinks as she passes on the signals to the other Slayers, 'at least he won't be a newbie for long!'


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Smecker watched the way the people in the bar reacted to each other and came to a few conclusions. The waitress wearing leather had a strong connection to the bartender, so she was probably his girlfriend. The body language was all wrong for a sister. 'You don't flirt that much with a sister. Too bad, he's hot,' Smecker thinks. The bartender was the son of the older man talking with the Duke according to the short, joking discussion that occurred when the father refused to name a drink when he wanted a refill. The father was also a good friend of the McManus trio from the easy way he and the Duke were exchanging information on weapons dealers who handled medieval weaponry.

Smecker was aware that the father could be a collector but he didn't think so from the way they were talking. In fact he was more inclined to believe that the father was crazier than the Irish lunatics because he was asking if the weapons dealers handled functional weapons or 'that movie prop crap'. He didn't want to know if the reason they were exchanging the information was because they were in the same 'business'. One small family of killers was all that he could handle.

The twins were giving the bartender a hard time but Smecker could tell that it was all in fun, one of the twin's favorite sports. Sometimes he thought that they spent as much time pulling pranks as they did killing evil men. Spike and Xander were getting in on the act as well, although Xander was coming in on the bartender's side and Spike was giving everyone who gave him an opportunity grief. Smecker wasn't sure if Spike was simply an equal opportunity type or if there was something else going on. Xander on the other hand, definitely gave off a sense of solidarity among family against friends in his reactions to the twins. He wasn't related by blood though, that was obvious. Smecker thought that either he was adopted officially or he was a chosen member of the bartender's family. There was an equal chance of either choice being true.

He had just turned his attention to the rest of the room, profiling the customers and waitresses, when the waitress in leather ducked a punch from a customer dressed up like a fake and not very good sea monster. 'He picked a really bad day to pull this shit,' Smecker thought. He pushed himself further back into the corner between the bar and the wall and prepared to enjoy the show.

There were three McManus males, two of whom were itching for a fight from the grins on the twin's faces, new guy and his bartender son, who both moved like predators as they prepared for trouble, and Spike and Xander, who Smecker already knew could handle themselves in a fight, all ready to take care of business. When Smecker added in the fact that there were five very lovely ladies, most of them on the small side, to be protected into the equation, he started hoping that the bar had a video surveillance system. This was bound to be one hell of a brawl.

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The Slayers hadn't needed Faith's hand signal to pay attention, although they were a bit disappointed to learn that they would need to capture at least one of the demons. They much preferred to kill the demons to capturing them. Demons were a pain to keep alive. They had known that something was up for the last hour or so. At least fifteen demons and vampires had come in, (the usual crowd for a single night was about thirty) and most were still on their first drink.

While that might not have been unusual in one or two customers, fifteen was pushing it beyond coincidence and into conspiracy. The poker game in the corner, (with stakes of everything from kittens to adult magazines to some actual cash) should have gone through at least a keg of beer by now. The five blue demons by the door hadn't even made a pass at Jennifer, their waitress, which was something that happened at least once an hour every shift she worked, more often when the crowd got really drunk.

So it came as no surprise to them that one of the demons, (a blue and green fish type covered in slime and scales; Faith knew she was going to end up looking through a ton of musty old books when Wes got it out of her that she didn't recognize the species) threw a punch at Faith when she carried a tray of drinks back to its table. Faith ducked the punch easily and used her tray like a saw blade to remove the demon's head. The tray didn't have a sharp edge, but her Slayer strength more than made up for it. That punch had to have been a signal because fists and other appendages were suddenly flying everywhere.

Demon Identification 101 was a required class for those who worked at the Pit. It covered the most common demons, both hostile and friendly, as well as the best ways to deal with them. Starting a brawl in front of a Tarkal demon was never recommended. Demons couldn't afford to look weak in front of other demons. Those demons who demonstrated that sort of idiocy soon found themselves as toys, slaves, prey or worse all three, for any demon who caught them at it. For demons that relied on an aura of innocence and fragility to catch their own prey, the situation was a perfect catch 22.

Tarkal demons, who looked remarkably like small, innocent bunny rabbits, (Xander and the rest of the Scoobies upon learning about the species had finally understood Anya's fear) dealt with the situation by having a reputation as being completely insane, berserker fighters who attacked anyone who and everyone around them the moment they became involved-in/saw a fight of any kind. The lone Tarkal demon, a regular who usually stopped in once or twice a week, looked up from the bowl it had been drinking its Slayer's Fist from at the smell of the blood from the demon Faith had killed and joined in the fray. It bounded up onto the table, charged right through its drink and launched itself onto the nearest demon's chest where it burrowed through using teeth and claws. Then it went onto the next demon unlucky enough to get in its way.

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When he saw the Bix throw a punch at Faith, Spike was thrilled. A brawl was much better than sitting around looking up old Egyptian demons. He jumped to his feet and howled, "BRAAWL!" The only humans in the Pit was the Slayers and the men at the bar, which meant that as long as he didn't hit anyone he recognized, he could have as much fun as he wanted. Out of the corner of his eye Spike could see the twins pulling their rosaries out from underneath their shirts and Dean and John pulling out weapons.

Satisfied that the secondary line protecting the Hellmouth was ready he checked the Slayers to see where the best fight would be. Faith was at the center of the room handling the four Bix that were left. Junior Slayers One and Two, (Spike couldn't remember any of the junior Slayers names because he'd been too busy playing undead punching bag for the Mini Slayers to get to know the ones over the age of eighteen) were taking on the six demon poker players. Junior Slayer Three was handling the four demons near the front entrance while Junior Slayer Four handled the vampires between Faith and JS3.

As the Tarkal was tearing apart everything between Faith and the abandoned poker game, Spike threw himself into the group of vampires trying to kill JS4. He wasn't stupid enough to get anywhere near the Tarkal. They were just plain vicious little beasts. As he jammed one of his favorite railroad spikes into the eye of a Borrik who tried jumping him from behind, Spike was reminded of the time he had been forced to distract his dark princess when she wanted one of the little buggers as a pet.

She had been thrilled to sense the violence beneath the soft, cuddly bunny rabbit form. He had known that she wouldn't understand that the Tarkal wasn't a bunny, so he had taken her to a doll shop where they had played tea party with the dolls and corpses of those Humans who had been in the shop. That had been close but she had been distracted enough to forget about the Tarkal. He still hated tea parties. Killing the shop keep and his customers had been fun but sitting around playing with them afterwards had taken far too much sitting still. Spike ignored the fact that he had done the exact same thing earlier in the week with one of the small Potentials, only with stuffed animals rather than corpses.

Spike and the Tarkal were the only demons fighting on the side of the Slayers, although in the Tarkal's case that was more a matter of the Slayers staying as far away from it as possible. The demons that weren't fighting the Slayers were very busy getting out of the way and betting heavily on the outcome of the various fights.

An Illillook won two kittens when Faith dropped the tray she'd been using as a shield and gutted two Bix at once with the long and short daggers she'd been hiding in sheaths along her spine under her top and hair. A Stalden lost a watch and a lighter when Xander and John dusted two vampires that had JS1 pinned to a wall for one of the poker demons to kill by shooting them with crossbows. She didn't hesitate a moment to take advantage of her unexpected release and kicked the demon in front of her back while scooping up the short sword that she had dropped. As it lunged back towards her, she took its head off with a single stroke. JS2 tossed another vampire towards JS1 before she took out a Freyal and that was the end of the poker game.

The dealer, a Braken demon, (the one poker player who had gone under the table and away from the fight with the Slayers,) popped up and grabbed the stakes for the game. He knew that the two Slayers who had killed those he had been playing with would ignore him and go to back up their sister Slayers. As long as he stayed quiet and away from the Tarkal, he would go home with the entire pot. JS1 scooped up the Tarkal and dumped him in a pitcher of beer before joining JS2 in backing up JS3 and JS4. Faced with the choice of drink or drown, (the pitcher was full and deeper than it was tall) the Tarkal proceeded to forget the fight in favor of getting drunk.

When the two Slayers reached the other side of the room, the demon bookies began paying off the bets and refusing new ones. It was easy to see where this fight was now headed. Five Slayers and one vampire verses three vampires and four demons wasn't enough of a challenge to bet on and they wanted to be gone before the end of the fight. They had no desire to be an available target for Slayers hopped up on adrenaline.

Spike was fighting two vampires at once when JS1 and JS2 staked them from behind on their way to backing up their sisters. "HEY!" he yelled in protest but both women were already gone. JS3 and JS4 each had a demon she was fighting but trying not to kill. With JS1 and JS2 coming into the fight to help, those demons were easily overwhelmed and captured. Spike huffed in annoyance at the end of the fight. Then he looked over at Faith. She had a vampire and the last of the Bix. Grumbling he went over and ripped the head off of the last vampire before helping her pin the Bix to the ground. The fight was over and now it was time to find out just what it had been all about.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Oh dear, I thought that I was done adding in new fandoms. It seems I was wrong. Welcome The Sentinel to the group everyone. ;) I also mentioned the X-Files, but kept that one as an actual TV show, my bad. LOL

Smecker had thought that everything in the bar was fake, costumes and geeks and the like pretending to be all big and bad. The monster's decapitation disabused him of that notion fast. There was no way in hell that had been faked. Smecker tried to bury himself in the wall at his back as the brawl he had been looking forward too suddenly erupted into a slaughter. He turned a quick glance back at the bar to see the other men's reactions to the death dealing women. Their calm demeanor and the twin's loud encouragement to someone named Faith, told him that not only were the men expecting what was happening, it was probably a regular occurrence.

'It's a real demon bar, with real demons. What the hell is going on here?' Smecker wondered. He had thought that it was strange that the McManus family would have him meet them in a hell themed bar. This was worse because he could not begin to understand how they reconciled their belief that they were called by God to destroy evil and having a friendly drink in a bar filled with real demons. Smecker had never had a real good relationship with God, even with the encouragement that he'd had from the twin's priest, mostly because of his 'if you don't want me, I don't want you' attitude. Faced with a bar full of real demons, he knew that when he finally crashed tonight he was going to have to revaluate that attitude.

The bartender seemed to understand the confusion he was experiencing, or at least thought that he did. "Yes, they really are demons. They come in different types, from different dimensions. They mostly fall into one of three categories; evil, neutral, and good, although the good ones don't show up here very often. The ladies are Slayers. They've been called to kick evil's ass on a nightly basis. The PTB's gave 'em speed, strength – the usual package – so they have a shot at surviving the hand to hand combat."

Smecker suddenly understood the joke behind the Slayer drinks as one of the smaller Slayers used a short sword to slice a demon in half. He sure as hell wouldn't want to tangle with one of these ladies if she had a bad case of PMS. He also finally understood why the bartender's father didn't want any of the 'movie prop crap'. The weapons they were using had to actually withstand the stress of being used to kill. "So who's Faith and what's with this place? I mean, I would think that the Slayers would be too busy kicking demonic ass to be serving drinks." Not to mention the seeming conflict of interests for them to be serving demons. Smecker was proud that his question came out cool and calm. He had a reputation to maintain, even if it was just in front of the Saints of South Boston.

"Faith's our goddaughter," Murphy explained over his shoulder. "The brunette in the leather."

"Not to mention like I said, not all demons are inherently evil," the bartender reminded him. "This bar and others like it all over the world are neutral territory. Here no one gets killed just because they happen to be on opposite sides. Start something here though, and you pay for it in spades. Plus if the evil types are in here, having a quiet drink or poker game, they aren't out on the streets killing people."

Smecker felt that he should have figured that out on his own, but chalked it up to the shock he'd received. It was beginning to look like the world of demonic evil had a great deal in common with the more mundane type that he was used to dealing with. This place was probably a regular meeting place for snitches and other information sellers of all types. At least Faith's being part of the McManus family made his meeting them here make sense, and it just figured that she'd have a lethal calling of her own.

Smecker was surprised to find that he was pleased to see that the demons and humans that were not involved in the fight were allowed to leave without hindrance. In fact, one demon stopped at the bar and made a poker date with Xander before leaving. It was a feeling that he hadn't expected to have here, the almost paternal pride of a senior LEO watching a junior do the job right, something that he seldom ran into. The Slayers weren't cops, but here they were the law and they were good at cleaning house, killing all but three of the demons involved in the battle. Those three were quickly restrained by Xander and the bartender's father.

Smecker threw back the rest of his drink and turned towards Murphy. "Well, now that the entertainment portion of the evening is over, do you boys want to tell me why we're having this little meeting?"

"You know our rules," Conner pointed out with a wave of his drink. "We only kill evil men, not women or children. We also don't mess around with this sort of thing, except to lend a hand if we're asked. Your case is both, so you needed to learn about what goes bump and to meet the ladies who keep the world from being fucked over and flushed down the crapper."

"And those who support them and fight alongside them," the Duke rumbled. "Special Agent Smecker of the FBI, I'd like you to meet John and Dean Winchester, two of the most infamous Hunters you'll ever meet and it seems that you've already met Xander Harris and Spike, Master of the line of Aurelius, of the Watcher's Council." He pointed a finger at each man as he made the introductions.

Smecker returned the nods each man gave him, even as his stomach sank like a lead balloon. He did not want to be Mulder, he really didn't. He was much better looking than David Duchovny, although he wouldn't have minded working with Nick Lea, the guy who played Mulder's partner in the second season. He was yummy. Besides, Smecker had all he could handle working with, and against, the McManus trio.

"Let's get these three back to the school," John said, once the demons were tied up. "Dean, do you think you'll need any back up until the second patrol group gets here?"

"Nah, just leave me Xander. He's good with clean up." The knowledge that the women who made up the second group of junior Slayers tended more towards breakage than repairs went unspoken between the two men.

There were fifteen junior Slayers in Cleveland at the moment. The eldest of the women was 45, the youngest 25, and only four of them had been on duty at the Pit tonight. They all took turns patrolling the city, trying to cram years of schooling into weeks or in some cases days, and working down at The Pit, each group taking turns working not only with the two senior Slayers, but their Watchers as well. While the school was not being just set up for the new Slayers, most of the Hunters that John had asked to come to the school were wary, both of their reception and of the Slayers themselves. It was posing to be an interesting problem as they had hoped that the Hunters would at least be willing to consider becoming Watchers.

"Faith, can you tell me what type of demon you've got there?" John asked as he turned his attention to the Slayers, and one of the more practical aspects of his job.

Faith blushed. She didn't know how John had figured out that she hadn't recognized the demon but she wasn't about to try and fake her way through. John could see a lie a mile off and wasn't kind to slackers. It was much better to admit your mistake and get it over with fast. "No, but I figured I could look it up as soon as we got back to the school. _Greater and Lesser Demons of the Deep_ should at least have a description and where to find more information if it doesn't cover the breed in any real detail."

John nodded. "That's a good place to start and I'll give you a little hint because you fessed up so fast. Look for demons that originate in the Mediterranean and surrounding waters. Your tactics were good. Slice and dice will pretty much take care of a lot of demons. There aren't that many who can survive losing their heads and most of their anatomies."

"Spike, Jennifer, Sondra, Amber good job," he said turning towards the vampire. Spike just shrugged and grinned. He loved a good brawl and John knew it. "Megan, you made two mistakes tonight. First, you need to stop focusing so much of your attention on the fight in front of you. That's how those vampires got the drop on you. Pay attention to everything and everyone in the fight or sooner or later you're going to end up having an accident, either hurting one of your sisters or an innocent. I know that you don't want that. The second thing you did wrong was how you picked up Kretit, the Tarkal demon. If you hadn't been so fast he would have spun his head around and taken your hand off at the wrist. You have to pick Tarkals up by the ears, not the scruff of the neck, that immobilizes their heads."

Megan took her scolding stoically. She was one of the Slayers who were having a really hard time, mostly because she had so little of it. By profession Megan was a New South Wales, Australia police detective, on assignment to Cascade, Washington, United States as the CPD's international exchange officer, assigned to the Major Crimes Unit. She was here on her three week vacation and had only two weeks left to go before she had to head back to Washington State.

Megan wished desperately that she had a better memory for the ins and outs of this new world, but at least she knew that she was heading back into a better situation than most of her new sisters. Her captain was well aware that there was more to the world than most people knew, and he was used to having a detective with a higher calling in life. It would take a hands-on demonstration, but she knew that once it was over she'd have her entire unit to help her out, and no one was a better researcher than her fellow officer Blair Sandburg. She would have to sound out the other men in her unit about being her Watcher though, because Sandy's partner would never give up his shaman/guide to anyone, not even her. As she followed the group out to their vehicles, she wondered which of her mates would be both willing and able to take on the job.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Although she would never consider it if their prisoners had been human or a species that was usually more friendly, Buffy did not hesitate to use torture on those demons who had proven to be fully evil. They even had a separate chamber for it down in the basement of the school. Well, it was more like they simply hadn't gotten around to getting rid of the one that was already there, but it was coming in handy now as the group from The Pit came in with three demons.

She let John give the lecture on when to and when not to use torture while she and Faith tied up the demons. If this was, as she suspected, the first volley of this year's apocalypse, then having the junior Slayers work down at The Pit was paying off. With the hard won knowledge of one who had fought at and survived far too many such things, she knew that if the Slayers hadn't been there, the new hellmouth would have been lost.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

A/N: This chapter contains a lot of spoilers for Boondock Saints and Boondock Saint 2 – All Saints Day. I just got the new movie and I'm so jazzed it's pathetic.

Less than an hour later Faith helped Buffy up the stairs to the library where everyone who could read a second language was holed up with the books that Daniel and Giles had managed to pull together. "Come on B. It wasn't that bad. We've done worse to scum like that," Faith said worried. She helped the shaky Slayer to a chair around one of the long tables. A quick glance showed that more than one face reflected the same amount of worry she was feeling.

Buffy scowled at the looks she was getting. The library was set up in a similar manner to the library at the old Sunnydale High School, although the aspects that they had hidden there were out in the open here. Weapons covered the walls, the stacks were labeled by the demonology texts they carried, and dangerous items were openly displayed in cast iron cages with large locks. There were four long tables covered with books and a cabinet that was currently serving as a buffet. "I'm fine!"

"I'm sure you are," Wesley said. He had no desire to have Buffy upset with him. He glanced down the table he was sitting at. SG1, the original Scoobies, and SG2 had taken over the table, as much to focus their knowledge of Nit and the Go'uald as it was to avoid the groups who were just learning to research. He searched for a quick change of subject and found one in the McManus family down at the end of the table. The twins were face down in a couple of large, old books. "I know that research is rather boring but it's not that bad," Wesley said, puzzled. From what little he knew of the brothers, falling asleep like this, early in the evening and without a large amount of alcohol to help them along, was very unusual.

All eyes turned from Buffy towards the other end of the table. "They weren't that drunk," Smecker said, worried. The boys hadn't finished off more than a couple of shots while he was at the bar.

"No they weren't," Il Duce agreed. He looked more remorseful, or perhaps sorrowful, than worried. He sighed and began to explain. "My family has been called one generation after the other for longer than we can remember, to purge this world of evil men. I had a friend once, who thought he knew why I started killing and why I couldn't stop, not for him or anyone else. I didn't even try to explain the truth to him. I was just content to let him help me with my work. It's easier with two…or more," he added with a nod at his twin sons.

"Louis found me, holding the body of my dead father when I was not much younger than my boys are now. He never knew that my father, a man he looked up to, had done his own share of killing for the Lord in his younger years. He also never knew that he'd startled me out of my first vision. He thought I was yelling because my father had been murdered. I was never the same after that, something that he expected. What he didn't expect was that I would marry or have children while I was still killing evil men. He honestly thought that one day I would stop or be killed. He didn't think that a man like me deserved to have a wife or a family when he couldn't."

The Duke shook his head and returned to the subject that he had meant to explain. "I knew what my first vision meant. My father had told me long ago that one day the visions would come to me and then it would be my turn to take up the family calling. I started with the mobsters that killed my father. My visions come to me when I'm awake. They don't come often, just enough to keep me going on the right path, showing me if I'm not meant to kill a certain man or if a man's so far gone that he needs killing right away. For my boys however, the visions come in their sleep. Most of the time they're already asleep when the visions come, but sometimes, like now, the visions come even when they aren't ready to sleep."

"They're having visions now?" Jack asked, not so much in surprise, after all this was grand central station for weird things like that, as much as with a why now?

"Aye, those are the only dreams they share; in the literal sense anyway." The Duke finished the book he was reading, and went on to another. "I really don't see what good these old stories about Egyptian gods are going to do."

"They give us a general background on the Go'uald we're dealing with; what sort of alliances she made in the past, how she treated those around her, who was likely to help her either with knowledge or weapons, what's most likely to piss her off the most, that sort of thing," Jack explained.

"Ah, sort of like getting the word on the street, and you need to wade through just about the same amount of bullshit too," he nodded. Scoping out an enemy was something he could understand.

"Actually," Daniel began, but he was interrupted by O'Neill.

"That's exactly what it's like," O'Neill said, pointing at the Duke. "If I could just get more of the eggheads in Danny's department to understand that I'd worry a lot less about them going into the field."

"Jack, they're perfectly competent professionals. They've passed the field requirements," Daniel pointed out, annoyed on behalf of his scientists.

"Uh huh, and they're still spending way too much time getting side tracked and into trouble," O'Neill stood firm on his opinion. Daniel sighed, but didn't refute the allegation. His department did have its share of absent minded professors, although only the ones that were able to focus most of the time were allowed out in the field. There was plenty of work that the others were able to do at the SGC in the labs that made up for it.

* * *

It certainly wasn't their first vision dream, nor did they expect it to be their last. They were back at McGinty's, although it looked like it had before they had been called. Doc had changed the décor a little since the bar fight that had set them on their path, but in the dream the only real change that they could see was that it was Rocco behind the bar instead of Doc. It didn't bother them that they knew Roc was dead. He had been a Saint, if only for a short time. Of course God would have made him an angel for his service. "Ya look good Roc," they chorused.

"Yeh," Roc nodded. "It's been good. Got a good job now and a hell of a better boss. You two now, you got a hell of a nasty job ahead of you. Sorry to tell ya boys, but you need to stay here in Cleveland for a while."

"Oh come on Roc!" Murphy whined. "For the Lord's sake! Just tell me who we gotta kill and we'll go do it, no problem, but we can't stick around for long with the law riding up our asses!"

Conner smacked his brother on the back of the head. "Don't you go whining on Roc. It ain't his fault he's got ta give us a crap message." He turned a grim look on his dead friend. "Go on Roc. Give us the bad news."

Rocco Della Rocco smiled at the two men who had been his best friends when he had been alive. "There's a reason that you were given the gifts you were given. For most of your family, it's a natural talent for weaponry. You haven't needed it, but you'll find that you will be able to use almost any weapon that you pick up and use it well, not just guns. That's a talent that's been passed down through your family for centuries. It's come full circle from one of your umpteen great grandmas. She was a Slayer. One of the Brits can tell you about that later. That's not the talent that you're going to need right now."

Conner and Murphy exchanged a glance, one that showed them each other's trepidation as well as their determination to do whatever God was about to command them to do. "Hit us Roc." The knowledge that they were descended from a Slayer could wait.

Rocco gave a grin. "You guys just amaze me. You know this is going to be a shit job, but you just take it anyway. Ok, you two find learning to read, write and speak so many different languages a breeze because the new Slayers are going to need you as translators. You already know what it's like to have a calling so you can help these ladies. Having someone who speaks their language and knows what they're going through is going to be vital for giving them the support they're going to need. Eventually the group here is going to get all of the teachers and such they're going to need up here, but you two are going to be the stop gap measure."

"Oh fucking hell," Murphy whimpered. "We're going ta be teachers?! To women like our Faith?" His head fell onto his folded arms on top of the bar. The image of a dozen teenaged Faiths, all with the super powers God had granted them chasing him and Conner around the mansion/school floated before his eyes.

Conner's face fell as well. "Just tell me we aren't gonna get stuck as punching bags." Murphy whimpered even louder. "I don't think we could live that down."

"The fucking Boston fucking Saints getting taken out by a bunch of little girls," Murphy moaned into his arms.

"First of all, most of these ladies are over eighteen, so they aren't girls. On the other hand, most of them aren't that big, not like that chick who kneed Conner in the nuts down at the meat plant," Rocco said. The guys really needed to treat these women right, not that the boys would ever be anything but gentlemen.

"At least I could knock that bitch out!" Murphy said, his head shooting up from the bar. Conner moaned and took his twin's previous position on the bar. He would give anything to be able to forget that woman. He still swore she had to have been pre-op. Just thinking about her made him want to guard himself. "We're not gonna be able to defend ourselves against real ladies!" That was their rule – no women, no children.

"You're not going to need to," Rocco reassured them. "At least not in your lessons. You do need to tell Buffy she's on maternity leave, and for that I wish you luck. Spike, Faith and the others are going to be working with the new Slayers on the hand to hand, kick demon ass shit. Your job is to just make sure they know what's going on. Anyway, that's the bad news. The good news is that you haven't been released from your calling. There's a lot of cleaning up to do in this town."

Conner and Murphy both raised their eyes to the white light that was where the ceiling should be. "Thank You Lord!" they cried. Their eyes dropped down to the bar in time to see a cat run across the bar. "Is that?" Murphy pointed.

Rocco sighed and nodded. "It ain't all harps and fluffy clouds guys. I gotta do some penance for the shit I did."

The twins started sniggering and woke themselves up by falling out of their chairs. "I still can't fucking believed that happened!" Murphy cried, laughing himself sick.

"Stuck for all eternity with a cat!" Conner snickered, "Only Rocco!"


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Still laughing Conner and Murphy picked up their chairs and sat down at the table. "You wanna give us the bad news?" Faith asked. Slayer dreams tended to be nothing but trouble, so she was expecting the same for her godfathers.

The twins froze as they realized that every set of eyes in the room was on them. "Well, it's not so much bad news for you as it is for us," Conner tried to explain.

"What's wrong with you?" Murphy interrupted, looking at Buffy's pale face.

Conner smacked him, and said in Gaelic, "_Don't ya remember how Mrs. Anderson looked while she was carryin'? Poor woman couldn't keep anything down for near on a year_."

"_Leave off_!" Murphy cried, in the same language. Neither of them noticed their father, (and Daniel) taking a second, longer look at Buffy before the Duke shook his head. A pregnant Slayer was nothing he wanted to be around. His own Annabelle had been a real horror when she had been carrying the boys. Them coming near on two months early and being in hospital for near on another month hadn't helped, especially after Murphy had come so close to dying.

Faith stood up and before the punch that Murphy was throwing at his brother could connect, had both of the twins by their collars and was shaking them. "Don't you two dare start! You want to beat the crap out of each other again; you do it in the gym, not in the library! Some of these books are too old to survive your shit and we need them!"

"_This is going to be worse than I thought_," Murphy told Conner, changing to German this time.

"_Worse than that; there's no alcohol allowed. It's a school with young'ins_." Conner nodded to the high school students around the table.

"There's always the Pit for that boys," Il Duce reminded them in English. "I'm guessin' that we're to be stayin' here for a while then?"

"Aye," the twins replied in the same language as Faith let them loose long enough to sit down again. "We're gonna be translators for the new Slayers 'til the teachers that speak the languages we know get hired," Conner went on to explain. "Thank the good Lord that we're still to be doing our job as well. I don't think I could stand to stay here and be fucking useless in the fight."

"I'll have the start of a who's who and they did what list for you boys by morning," Smecker said. "But just to start you off right, you might want to look into the Russian mob around here. Xander had to take down three enforcers tonight when they tried to beat on him to convince the guy he buys pizza from to hand over protection money." Murphy threw a grin at Conner. The Russian mafia would always be a bit of a favorite for them. It was because of those bastards that they had gotten their start as Saints.

"That's it?" Faith asked, frowning. "The PTB's actually sent you a vision to tell you to translate for us? Visions are for serious shit, not little crap like that."

"Well, there was one other, little thing," Conner admitted slowly. Murphy might not have caught on to why Rocco had wished them luck, but having seen Faith go head to head both with Spike in practice and earlier tonight at the Pit, he was not looking forward to passing on the message to Buffy that she was on maternity leave.

"What!" Faith asked exasperated. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at the twins, willing them to get on with it.

"Buffy's on maternity leave," Murphy piped up. Conner cursed, reached up and grabbed his brother's collar, dragging Murphy down and under the table. Now he had to save his idiot twin from a pissed off Slayer if the look on Buffy's face was any indication.

"What!" Buffy growled as she got up from her chair and began stalking the brothers.

"Hey, why didn't they tell you?" Faith asked, getting between Buffy and the twins. That gave them enough time to get some distance between them and Buffy. "You get the dreams more than I do."

"They did, I just wasn't sure what was going on. Cryptic much?" she reminded her sister Slayer. "Besides, I didn't think we were going to be going up against a lot of demons, just this wanna-be goddess."

"Wanna-be goddess with a group of magic users she's controlling somehow," Giles said sternly, standing up and joining Faith in confronting his Slayer. Giles' typical stance; hands on hips and leaning slightly over her, actually gave Buffy a warm glow. It had been a while since she'd gotten a Giles' rant, although she really didn't think she deserved it this time. It wasn't like she'd be in any real danger helping to take out Nit and her Jaffa. She was in more than good enough shape to take out anything one of them could throw at her, although she wasn't stupid enough to think that anyone but Willow stood a chance against Nit's priestesses.

Willow had been the one to figure out that they and the two young girls had been kidnapped because they were all magic users. According to Daniel, the magic users Nit was gathering were most likely being used to recreate her priesthood. Those ancient priestesses had always been virgins, sworn to use their magic for their goddess, and that was only just the beginning of her women's cult. Nit's Jaffa had also been female, although they had not been required to be virgins. According to Nit's rules, males were the lowest of the low, and to have been touched by one was a mark of shame.

"Not to mention her Jaffa and whatever men she'll have under her control," O'Neill pointed out. He and Jack also joined the group standing around Buffy.

"All it takes is just one hit in the wrong place," Jack reminded her. He and O'Neill knew they tended to over react to threats to children because of their son Charlie's death, but they didn't try to reign themselves in right now. This was too important.

"She's not going to have real Jaffa, just whoever she's turned into Jaffa," Buffy tried to point out reasonably. "Seeing as how I can wipe the floor with your average real Jaffa and at least come out on top with T'ealc, I really don't see the problem." Out of the corner of her eye she could see Conner dragging Murphy out the library door. It wouldn't help. She'd get the twit for just blurting that out in front of everyone and leaving her to deal with the fallout.

"Ok, I'll give you that one," Faith admitted. They had learned that Nit did have some humans she called Jaffa from the demons that they had questioned earlier. "The demons we took care of tonight weren't the only ones she's got though! Jack's right, all it takes is one hit and the baby's in trouble." Faith hated to point that out, but she didn't want her sister Slayer to be in that sort of situation. That guilt factor had to be worse than what she dealt with from her trip to the dark side.

Buffy looked grim, but admitted, "I hadn't counted on her hooking up with the local demons. We haven't been here long enough to teach them what crosses the line and what doesn't yet."

John came in to the library in time to see Conner drag Murphy off and to hear the conversation the others were having with Buffy. He was wiping his hands with a rag when he walked up to her and said, "Buffy."

Buffy turned around and waved him off before he could get out another word. She saw the look in his eyes, the terror of losing another member of his family. "Don't worry, the demons she has shifted the balance. I'm not going." She just couldn't do that to him.

"Does that mean you intend to keep going out on patrol?" John asked. He was torn between ordering her to stay home to protect the baby and knowing that as a Slayer there were some things that she could not stay away from.

Buffy sighed. She could see how John was struggling with himself not to try and wrap her up in cotton. "That depends on how things go. From what we figured out last time, there's a good chance I'm going to go on a slaying rampage or something to make sure the baby's protected, but if I don't get the super model bump, I'll be way too awkward to do the job. We'll have to see how it goes."

John nodded while Giles pulled his glasses off and chewed on the ear piece, an indication that his mind was going a mile a minute. "Keep working with the Junior Slayers," he said. "They can provide an additional layer of protection for you while still making sure that you get enough action to satisfy your instincts. I'd suggest making sure that you get at least one fledgling and play with it instead of taking on Spike. We don't want you to accidentally stake him simply because, well,"

"Because I'm hormonal," Buffy finished for him.

Giles smiled slightly and nodded. "At least you won't be dealing with this alone." He paused. "I hadn't quite figured out how to tell anyone this yet, but you aren't the only one expecting." He hadn't been sure how Buffy would take the news. He hadn't expected that it would be Dawn who started yelling first.

"You knocked up Grandma? I'm going to get an aunt or another uncle!" She stormed up to him. "You are such dead meat! That's dangerous at her age!" She would have continued her rant, but Buffy came to his rescue, picking up Dawn and taking her out of the library. He wasn't foolish enough to think that he'd gotten away clean though. Buffy had shot him a look over her shoulder as she left. He was going to be nothing but one big bruise by the time she was done with him, although she'd blame it on needing to train. She'd use his own orders against him too, seeing as he had just told her she couldn't take Spike on anymore. Well he was used to such abuse, and if they were lucky it meant that Buffy had forgotten all about Murphy's blunt announcement.

"We need to get back to Nit and her followers. John did you get an estimate of how many demons she has as allies and what breeds they are?" Il Duce asked.

"It's the usual; vampires, a good portion of sea and fresh water demons which looks to be routine for this area seeing as how we're on Lake Erie, some dark magic users I think might be demons but I'm not sure as our informants never saw under their robes, and some elemental types – earth in the form of rock, water in the form of drowned sailors, wind in the form of dust devils, and fire in the form of salamanders. Fortunately she doesn't have many of the elementals," John reported.

"Hey, elementals are fun. Slade, you up for a ride?" Johnny Blaze asked his fellow Ghost Rider.

"Yep, that mist shit shouldn't affect us when we're riding. There's nothing there but flame and bone. As long as we've got something that can take the suckers out, we should be fine," the old man, who was a lot older than he looked, replied.

"Then let's find something that can take out an elemental other than you guys' powers," Willow said, going over to the stacks for more books.

"Water demons," Tara murmured as she took went to look up what they had on the subject.

"T, go and show the younger girls what weaknesses there are in a Jaffa," Colonel O'Neill ordered. They all separated and got down to figuring out what they'd need to take care of the threat to the new Hellmouth.


End file.
